Fig. 2

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for Models 1–3. The area under an ROC curve is a measure of model performance. Specifically, the area measures discrimination – in this case the ability of the predictive model to correctly classify persons with and without resistance. Model 1, in which we assumed that viral load and CD4 cell counts from time of treatment initiation were available, performed the best, and had an area under the ROC curve of 0.8165. In Model 2, when viral load from treatment initiation was excluded as an eligible predictor, performed slightly less well (area under ROC curve of 0.7981). Finally, in Model 3, we assumed that neither viral load nor CD4 cell counts from time of treatment initiation were available. This model performed the poorest of all three models evaluated, with an area under the ROC curve of 0.794 – although this difference was not statistically significant and may not be clinically meaningful