A Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve is plotted for a new biomarker. The area under the curve (AUC) is 0.62. This indicates that the test:

• A Has excellent discriminative ability
• B Is equivalent to a perfect test
• C Should always be preferred over the current gold standard
• D Performs only slightly better than chance ✓

Explanation

An AUC of 0.5 represents random chance (no discriminative ability), while 1.0 represents a perfect test. An AUC of 0.62 falls in the range of poor (0.6–0.7) discriminative ability, indicating the biomarker performs only marginally better than flipping a coin. AUC ≥ 0.9 is considered excellent; 0.7–0.9 is acceptable.

Reference: Park's Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine, 27th ed.

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