What's your Medical Diagnosis? 70y F, Fever and Back Pain

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:#26

Today's Case

Demographic: Female, 70 years, Middle East

Clinical features:

• intermittent fevers
• back and leg pain
• chills
• sweats
• abdominal pain
• weight loss
• dysuria

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
• The final diagnosis of the case
• Which of the MGH panel differential diagnoses did Isabel contain
• Did Isabel suggest the final diagnosis

Differential Diagnoses considered by the MGH panel: Tuberculosis

Final Diagnosis of the case according to NEJM: Brucellosis

Differential Diagnoses of the case as given by Isabel: Tuberculosis in Neuro

Was the final diagnosis given by Isabel: Yes, Brucellosis in Infectious