Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - 31 Oct 1995
University of Washington School of Medicine researchers in Seattle selected 134 general internists and family practitioners and tested their diagnostic abilities on as many as 16 patients each.
Only 23 of 89 physicians correctly diagnosed a patient with Karposi's Syndrome and only 22 of 97 doctors detected and diagnosed a patient suffering from oral hairy leukoplakia -- two frequently seen diseases among those infected with HIV.
Another patient complaining of fatigue, fever and pain in the joints was correctly diagnosed by just 23 of 133 physicians as suffering from diffuse lymphadenopathy, another AIDS-related disease.
Some of the missed diagnoses could be attributed to lack of experience with HIV-infected patients, but also "indicate deficiencies in HIV-related physical diagnosis skills among primary care physicians and also suggest more general deficiencies at physical diagnosis," study author Doughlas Paauw wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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