Bayes and likelihoodratio

Sunday, November 24th, 2013

In their diagnostic process, GPs combine large amounts of knowledge they have accumulated during their personal training. They consider illness scripts or prototypes, which they then accept or reject. At the same time, considering diagnostic data also implies a quantitative process, namely assessing the probability that the patient has a particular disease. Thomas Bayes (1702-1761) formulated in mathematical terms how the probability of a particular conclusion – in medicine a diagnosis – is altered by new data that become available, for instance from history-taking or examination. Bayesian logic can be described as a mathematical rule combining prior information with evidence from data.(1;2) read more