Diagnosis: The buck starts here---The role of diagnosis in three areas of modern medicine.

摘要

This thesis examines the role of diagnosis---traditional and molecular---in three areas of medicine: personalized cancer treatment, treatment of infectious diseases and treatment of controversial disorders lacking unambiguous physiological bases. The thesis uses a mix of statistics, expert interviews and patient anecdotes to address in the form of three feature stories three aspects pertinent to the role of diagnosis in modern medicine. The first story addresses the challenges to developing diagnostic markers for truly personalized cancer therapy. The second story features a recent advance in molecular diagnostics that has transformed the treatment of infectious diseases, especially hitherto-unknown viral infections. The third story illustrates the plight of patients suffering from disorders whose very existence is controversial and for which doctors are unable to provide clear-cut diagnoses.