Other points of comparison between the tests are cost and convenience of specimen handling.
Convenience urine specimens were collected from 19 men over the age of 18, at an STD clinic and were frozen at −80°C on the day of collection.
However, we argue that it does not reflect the reality that 'samples of convenience' and uncontrolled specimen collection are the norm in genomic biomarker studies (Simon et al., 2009).
Such quantitative information may become critical for understanding the aetiology of gastroenteritis, and in epidemiologic studies the convenience of collecting specimen by rectal swabs rather than faeces would be a significant advantage.
Last, the convenience sample of specimens may not be representative of the Nueces County population as a whole because the specimens were not obtained through a randomized process.
While US Influenza Virologic Surveillance System provides the best data source for following trends in laboratory-confirmed influenza infections, it is nevertheless a convenience sample of specimens sent to participating laboratories.
Several studies used convenience collections of specimens taken for clinical indications before routine discarding.
Each hospital collects 10 20 convenience throat swab specimens weekly from ILI patients visiting the hospitals within 3 days of illness onset.
Similarly, the team of Wisman showed that a combination of the genes EPB41L3, JAM3, TERT and C13ORF18, gave a sensitivity of 71% and specificity of 77% for detecting CIN2, CIN3 or cancer (CIN2+) in a convenience set of specimens from a Dutch tissue bank [45].
First, testing a convenience sample of fecal specimens from norovirus-negative outbreaks might have introduced selection bias, the impact of which is uncertain.
