BACKGROUND Prospective systematic analyses of the clinical presentation of bullous pemphigoid (BP) are lacking. Little is known about the time required for its diagnosis. Knowledge of the disease spectrum is important for diagnosis, management and inclusion of patients in therapeutic trials. OBJECTIVES The primary aims of the study were: (i) to characterize the clinical features of BP at time...

BACKGROUND Early detection and diagnosis of tuberculosis remain major global priorities for tuberculosis control. Few studies have used a qualitative approach to investigate the social determinants contributing to diagnostic delay and none have compared data collected from individual, community, and health-system levels. We aimed to characterize the social determinants that contribute to diagno...

OBJECTIVE To assess the gender variations in delay from symptom onset to help seeking, diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis (TB) using DOTS at community level, in 10 subdistricts of Bangladesh with 2.5 million people under a non-governmental organization's (Building Resources Across Communities, or BRAC) DOTS programme for TB control. DESIGN A cross-sectional survey of 1000 newly diagnosed...

BACKGROUND Tanzania is among the 30 countries with the highest tuberculosis (TB) burdens. Because TB has a long infectious period, early diagnosis is not only important for reducing transmission, but also for improving treatment outcomes. We assessed diagnostic delay and associated factors among infectious TB patients. METHODS We interviewed new smear-positive adult pulmonary TB patients enro...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS To see if there has been a decrease in patient delay, professional delay, diagnostic delay, and treatment delay in laryngeal cancer. STUDY DESIGN Institutional review board-approved retrospective chart review of patients diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. METHODS Nine hundred sixty-six patients with International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision code for laryng...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Diagnostic delay of cerebral vein and dural sinus thrombosis may have an impact on outcome. METHODS In the International Study on Cerebral Vein and Dural Sinus Thrombosis (ISCVT) cohort (624 patients with cerebral vein and dural sinus thrombosis), we analyzed the predictors and the impact on outcome of diagnostic delay. Primary outcome was a modified Rankin Scale score ...

BACKGROUND Although white women have the highest incidence of breast cancer, African American, followed by Hispanic, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Asian American or Pacific Islander, women have higher death rates from the disease. Timely initiation of treatment has been shown to improve survival, and may help to lessen the mortality differences among racial/ethnic groups. METHODS The pu...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate concurrent validity between the Korean-Ages and Stages Questionnaires (K-ASQ) and the Denver Developmental Screening Test II (DDST II), and to evaluate the validity of the K-ASQ as a screening tool for detecting developmental delay of Korean children. METHOD A retrospective chart review was done to examine concurrent validity of the screening potentials for developmental...