The basis of diagnostic staining is to identify a specific etiologic agent of disease. Diagnostic staining of specimens from patients help identify the cause of the illness.
It helps recognize antigens that are linked to cancer and other diseases or to highlight important features of the abnormal tissue or to demonstrate specific cellular components that aid pathologists in the evaluation of disease states or help to diagnose the presence of a bacterial infection quickly.
For diagnostic staining, sensitivity and specificity play an important role. For instance, a test with low sensitivity will provide false negative results which means the more the sensitive the test, the fewer false negative results, and a highly specific test will mean that there are few false positive results.