Comparison of Eight Computer Programs for Receiver-Operating Characteristic Analysis (Evidence-Based Laboratory Medicine and Test Utilization‪)‬

ROC analysis is now a standard tool to assess, define, and compare the diagnostic validity of laboratory tests or diagnostic measures (1). Medline searches have shown that the number of publications using ROC curves has increased from ~300 studies in the 1980s to 5000 studies since 1990. Several computer programs have been developed to generate ROC curves, and some of the early programs were briefly described in 1993 (2). However, all of these early programs had limitations for easy and accessible practical use. Within the last several years, commercial and public domain programs have become available for complex ROC analysis and ROC plotting. To our knowledge, an overview and comparison of these newly available ROC programs has not been performed. The aims of this study were (a) to survey currently available ROC programs, (b) to compare these ROC programs for their ease of use, and (c) to evaluate their relative utility in ROC analysis.