Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Background
Rare diseases (RD) result in a wide variety of clinical presentations, and this creates a significant diagnostic challenge for health care professionals. We hypothesized that there exist a set of consistent and shared phenomena among all individuals affected by (different) RD during the time before diagnosis is established.Objective
We aimed to identify commonalities between different RD and developed a machine learning diagnostic support tool for RD.Methods
20 interviews with affected individuals with different RD, focusing on the time period before their diagnosis, were performed and qualitatively analyzed. Out of these pre-diagnostic experiences, we distilled key phenomena and created a questionnaire which was then distributed among individuals with the established diagnosis of i.) RD, ii.) other common non-rare diseases (NRO) iii.) common chronic diseases (CD), iv.), or psychosomatic/somatoform disorders (PSY). Finally, four combined single machine learning methods and a fusion algorithm were used to distinguish the different answer patterns of the questionnaires.Results
The questionnaire contained 53 questions. A total sum of 1763 questionnaires (758 RD, 149 CD, 48 PSY, 200 NRO, 34 healthy individuals and 574 not evaluable questionnaires) were collected. Based on 3 independent data sets the 10-fold stratified cross-validation method for the answer-pattern recognition resulted in sensitivity values of 88.9% to detect the answer pattern of a RD, 86.6% for NRO, 87.7% for CD and 84.2% for PSY.Conclusion
Despite the great diversity in presentation and pathogenesis of each RD, patients with RD share surprisingly similar pre-diagnosis experiences. Our questionnaire and data-mining based approach successfully detected unique patterns in groups of individuals affected by a broad range of different rare diseases. Therefore, these results indicate distinct patterns that may be used for diagnostic support in RD.
SUBMITTER: Grigull L
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6786570 | biostudies-literature | 2019
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Grigull Lorenz L Mehmecke Sandra S Rother Ann-Katrin AK Blöß Susanne S Klemann Christian C Schumacher Ulrike U Mücke Urs U Kortum Xiaowei X Lechner Werner W Klawonn Frank F
PloS one 20191010 10
<h4>Background</h4>Rare diseases (RD) result in a wide variety of clinical presentations, and this creates a significant diagnostic challenge for health care professionals. We hypothesized that there exist a set of consistent and shared phenomena among all individuals affected by (different) RD during the time before diagnosis is established.<h4>Objective</h4>We aimed to identify commonalities between different RD and developed a machine learning diagnostic support tool for RD.<h4>Methods</h4>20 ...[more]