[killjoywashere]

For those not in the lab business: a low false positive rate and a high false negative rate are useful for confirmatory testing, not for screening. Such tests are terrible for screening. So this might be able to insert itself between the screening test (e.g. mammo, psa, or CXR) and the biopsy, but it won't replace the biopsy because you still have to characterize the cancer for further treatment decisions.

From a market positioning standpoint, it's not bad, because you don't piss off the generalist physicians by stealing their screening role, and you don't piss off the pathologists or surgeons by stealing their biopsies. The question is, does it add sufficient value for the payer to pay?

[jessriedel]

> For those not in the lab business: a low false positive rate and a high false negative rate are useful for confirmatory testing, not for screening. Such tests are terrible for screening.

Newbie question: wouldn't a test with very few false positives, but frequent false negatives, still be good for screening if it was cheaper/easier than existing screening, so it could be given to more of the population based on a weaker suspicion threshold? Like, in the limit of it being free and having zero false-positive rate, you'd give it to everyone.

(Maybe given your expertise it's obvious to you that the test is sufficiently expensive that this argument doesn't apply?)

[ac29]

Frequent false negatives mean it will miss many people who do have the disease, leading them to believe they are healthy until the disease progresses to a point it may be more difficult to treat.

[killjoywashere]

If you're kicking people with cancer out of the medical system on a screening test, you're going to have a bad day.

[sandworm101]

If the mam (or other image) is positive for cancer, this test wont stop them doing a biopsy.

[killjoywashere]

exactly, which begs the question of why would a payer pay this?