Understanding Odds and Likelihood Ratios in Clinical Decision-Making

In this episode of the St. Emlyn's podcast, Rick Body and Greg Yates delve into the concept of likelihood ratios, an advanced yet practical tool for diagnosing patients in the emergency department. Building on the previous episode about predictive values, they explain how likelihood ratios help compare the probability of test results between diseased and non-diseased patients. They provide examples, like evaluating chest pain and using the Smith Calculator for Anterior ST Elevation, to show how likelihood ratios can change clinical decision-making.

Rick and Greg also discuss Bayesian reasoning and how pretest and post-test probabilities are used in practice.

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast

00:34 Understanding Likelihood Ratios

02:05 Practical Example: Chest Pain Case

03:53 Calculating Likelihood Ratios

07:17 Applying Bayesian Reasoning

09:50 Recap and Conclusion