A diagnosis of exclusion or by exclusion (per exclusionem) is a diagnosis of a medical condition reached by a process of elimination, which may be necessary if presence cannot be established with complete confidence from history, examination or testing. Such elimination of other reasonable possibilities is a major component in performing a differential diagnosis.

Diagnosis by exclusion tends to occur where scientific knowledge is scarce, specifically where the means to verify a diagnosis by an objective method is absent. As a specific diagnosis cannot be confirmed, a fall back position is to exclude that group of known causes that may cause a similar clinical presentation.

The largest category of diagnosis by exclusion is seen among psychiatric disorders where the presence of physical or organic disease must be excluded as a prerequisite for making a functional diagnosis.

Examples

An example of such a diagnosis is "fever of unknown origin": to explain the cause of elevated temperature the most common causes of unexplained fever (infection, neoplasm, or collagen vascular disease) must be ruled out.

Other examples include:

See also

References

  1. Akkara Veetil BM, Yee AH, Warrington KJ, Aksamit AJ Jr, Mason TG (December 2012). "Aseptic meningitis in adult onset Still's disease". Rheumatol Int. 32 (12): 4031–4034. doi:10.1007/s00296-010-1529-8. PMID 20495923. S2CID 19431424.
  2. "Behcet Disease: Overview – eMedicine Dermatology". Retrieved 2009-03-28.
  3. Petruzzelli GJ, Hirsch BE (August 1991). "Bell's palsy. A diagnosis of exclusion". Postgraduate Medicine. 90 (2): 115–118, 121–122, 125–127. doi:10.1080/00325481.1991.11701011. PMID 1862038.
  4. Maltsman-Tseikhin A, Moricca P, Niv D (June 2007). "Burning mouth syndrome: will better understanding yield better management?". Pain Practice. 7 (2): 151–162. doi:10.1111/j.1533-2500.2007.00124.x. PMID 17559486. S2CID 4820793.
  5. Ferguson B, Gryfe D, Hsu W (December 2013). "Chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis in a 13 year old female athlete: a case report". The Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association. 57 (4): 334–340. PMC 3845477. PMID 24302781.
  6. Leviner, Sherry (7 May 2021). "Recognizing the Clinical Sequelae of COVID-19 in Adults: COVID-19 Long-Haulers". The Journal for Nurse Practitioners. 17 (8): 946–949. doi:10.1016/j.nurpra.2021.05.003. ISSN 1555-4155. PMC 8103144. PMID 33976591.
  7. Prince, Jim McMorran, Damian Crowther, Stew McMorran, Steve Youngmin, Ian Wacogne, Jon Pleat, Clive. "primary polydipsia – General Practice Notebook". www.gpnotebook.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-11-22.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. Freudenreich, O (December 2012). "Differential Diagnosis of Psychotic Symptoms: Medical 'Mimics'". Psychiatric Times.
  9. Henningsen, Peter (March 2018). "Management of somatic symptom disorder". Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. 20 (1): 23–31. doi:10.31887/DCNS.2018.20.1/phenningsen. ISSN 1294-8322. PMC 6016049. PMID 29946208.
  10. Kwan ES, Wolpert SM, Hedges TR, Laucella M (February 1988). "Tolosa-Hunt syndrome revisited: not necessarily a diagnosis of exclusion". AJR. American Journal of Roentgenology. 150 (2): 413–418. doi:10.2214/ajr.150.2.413. PMID 3257334. S2CID 32214113.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.