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sensitivity

— For tests, the proportion of patients with the condition of interest who have a positive test result


Synonyms:

true positive rate

Full explanation:

The sensitivity of a test is its ability to identify correctly people with the target condition.

A test with high sensitivity will be positive for most of the people who have the condition, and will have few false-negative results.

Example:

For example, if 95 out of 100 patients in a study have cancer (based on the reference standard test), the sensitivity of that test for detecting cancer is 95/100 or 95%.

See also:

true positive test  ·  specificity

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