Quality standards are needed for reporting of test accuracy studies for animal diseases

The STARD statement (www.stard-statement.org) emphasizes complete and transparent reporting of key elements of test accuracy studies. Guidelines for authors in many biomedical journals recommend adherence to these standards but explicit recommendations by editors of veterinary journals are limited. Adherence to standards benefits end-users of tests including doctors, veterinarians and other healthcare professionals and the human and animal patients in which the tests are used. Reporting standards also provide a structured basis for researchers and graduate students to prepare manuscripts, and subsequently can be a useful adjunct to the peer-review process. This paper discusses the purpose of STARD and its possible modification for animal disease studies, variation in reporting and design quality in human and animal disease studies, use of a different instrument (QUADAS) for assessing methodological quality, and provides some recommendations for the future. Finally, the contributions of Dr. Hollis Erb to improvements in methodological and reporting qualities of test accuracy studies in Preventive Veterinary Medicine are described.