Gold standard

Definition:

• Expression of the state of the art in health care or the „truth” about a patient’s condition, against which performance of an information resource can be compared.

Example:

• Colonoscopy is the gold standard to the study of colorectal carcinoma.

The practice:

• Gold standards are usually not knowable, so studies often employ the best approximation to the „truth” that is available to the investigator

There is a prototypical „carat scale” of gold standards

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