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The science of clinical practice: disease diagnosis or patient prognosis? Evidence about "what is likely to happen" should shape clinical practice

Croft, Peter; Altman, Douglas G; Deeks, Jonathan J; Dunn, Kate M; Hay, Alastair D; Hemingway, Harry; LeResche, Linda; Peat, George; Perel, Pablo; Petersen, Steffen E; Riley, Richard D; Roberts, Ian; Sharpe, Michael; Stevens, Richard J; Van Der Windt, Danielle A; Von Korff, Michael; Timmis, Adam

The science of clinical practice: disease diagnosis or patient prognosis? Evidence about "what is likely to happen" should shape clinical practice Thumbnail


Authors

Peter Croft

Douglas G Altman

Jonathan J Deeks

Alastair D Hay

Harry Hemingway

Linda LeResche

George Peat

Pablo Perel

Steffen E Petersen

Richard D Riley

Ian Roberts

Michael Sharpe

Richard J Stevens

Michael Von Korff

Adam Timmis



Abstract

BACKGROUND: Diagnosis is the traditional basis for decision-making in clinical practice. Evidence is often lacking about future benefits and harms of these decisions for patients diagnosed with and without disease. We propose that a model of clinical practice focused on patient prognosis and predicting the likelihood of future outcomes may be more useful. DISCUSSION: Disease diagnosis can provide crucial information for clinical decisions that influence outcome in serious acute illness. However, the central role of diagnosis in clinical practice is challenged by evidence that it does not always benefit patients and that factors other than disease are important in determining patient outcome. The concept of disease as a dichotomous 'yes' or 'no' is challenged by the frequent use of diagnostic indicators with continuous distributions, such as blood sugar, which are better understood as contributing information about the probability of a patient's future outcome. Moreover, many illnesses, such as chronic fatigue, cannot usefully be labelled from a disease-diagnosis perspective. In such cases, a prognostic model provides an alternative framework for clinical practice that extends beyond disease and diagnosis and incorporates a wide range of information to predict future patient outcomes and to guide decisions to improve them. Such information embraces non-disease factors and genetic and other biomarkers which influence outcome. SUMMARY: Patient prognosis can provide the framework for modern clinical practice to integrate information from the expanding biological, social, and clinical database for more effective and efficient care.

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 24, 2014
Online Publication Date Jan 30, 2015
Publication Date Jan 30, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal BMC Medicine
Publisher Springer Verlag
Pages 20
DOI https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-014-0265-4
Keywords diagnosis
Publisher URL https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-014-0265-4

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