What's your Medical Diagnosis: Abdominal Pain, Hematochezia, Anemia

The Isabel diagnosis tool touts an extensive database of conditions for differential diagnosis support, and we often will test its accuracy with real patient cases from the New England Journal of Medicine.

About the Isabel Diagnosis Challenge

The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) publishes interesting presentations of common diseases and unusual cases in the Clinical pathology Conference (CPC) series. These cases are educational and can pose diagnostic challenges even to the expert physicians at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Using the clinical features of these cases you can evaluate your own diagnostic skills and compare your diagnostic performance to that of the physicians at MGH. If you are registered with Isabel as a client or have a free-trial subscription, you can use the diagnosis reminder system and run through some scenarios to get a list of likely suspects. Clicking on a diagnosis will take you through to various knowledge sources and links available from within Isabel.

Case 2012:#25

Today's Case

Demographic: Male, 15 years, North America

Clinical features:

• low back pain
• left upper quadrant abdominal pain
• periumbilical pain
• hematochezia
• anemia
• diarrhea

STOP! Before you read further you might want to construct your own complete differential diagnosis and final diagnosis.

In the following section you will find: The differential diagnosis constructed by the MGH panel and whether  Isabel suggested the final diagnosis.

Differential Diagnoses considered by the MGH panel: Inflammatory bowel disease
Final Diagnosis of the case according to NEJM:
Adenomatous polyp with focal high grade dysplasia. Postobstructive acute appendicitis and periappendicitis.
Differential Diagnoses of the case as given by Isabel: Inflammatory bowel disease in Gastro

Was the final diagnosis given by Isabel: Yes, (i) Cecal polyp in Gastro (ii) Appendicitis in Gastro