Diagnostics of Thyroid Malignancy and Indications for Surgery in the Elderly and Younger Counterparts: Comparison of 3,749 Patients

Table 4

Diagnostic potential of clinical suspicion of malignancy parameter in prediction of thyroid malignant tumor presence in total study group and age subgroups of patients with thyroid nodules (ROC analysis).

	Total study group (,749)	<45 years (,173)	45–<65 years (,869)	65 years ()
AUC	0.825	0.850	0.800	0.829
95% CI	0.790–0.855	0.800–0.900	0.751–0.850	0.772–0.885
value
SE	0.015	0.026	0.025	0.029
Sensitivity	0.72	0.77	0.66	0.75
Specificity	0.93	0.93	0.94	0.90
Accuracy	0.91	0.92	0.92	0.89
LR(+)	10.43	10.92	11.33	7.86
LR(−)	0.30	0.25	0.36	0.27
PPV	0.48	0.49	0.46	0.50
NPV	0.97	0.98	0.97	0.97
Youden’s index	0.65	0.70	0.60	0.66

AUC: area under ROC curve; 95% CI: confidence interval; SE: standard error; LR(+): likelihood ratio of positive results; LR(−): likelihood ratio of negative results; PPV: positive predictive value; NPV: negative predictive value; significant.