Alternative Diagnosis

The important issue for the patients who are newly diagnosed is to think whether diagnosis is correct or not. Validation and its accuracy are very important.

Misdiagnosis may occur and is common with the error rates from 1.4 per cent in cancer biopsies to 20 to 40 per cent misdiagnosis rate in emergency or the ICU care. Patient's survey also indicate the chances of misdiagnosis ranging from 8 percent to 40 percent. This causes misdiagnosis which is one of the types of medical mistake.

There are number of reasons for misdiagnosis containing errors by the doctor, laboratory test or by the specialists. Patients also give contribution to error in number of ways.

Various misdiagnosis types are there ranging from total wrong diagnosis to partial misdiagnosis as wrong subtype, medication causes, underlying condition, complications or the related conditions. When person does not take a medical help is also one type of misdiagnosis.

For all the conditions, misdiagnosis is not commonly occur but follows particular pattern. Some of the conditions are not easy to diagnose, while common or known conditions have less chances of misdiagnosis. Some conditions are over diagnosed while other conditions are under diagnosed.

There are number of ways for preventing misdiagnosis like taking the second opinion or take the reference of the specialist.