Statistics and Misdiagnosis

 

Statistics may well be one of the causes of all sorts of misdiagnosis.

Our granddaughter was born with a hernia in her diaphragm (CDH), which is a problem in about 1 in 3000 babies. Not quite sure on the statistic, mainly because she is absolutely fine now!

Now my GP of about 20 years experience has never known a CDH. Interestingly, she is very interested, as she wants to know more in case she has to counsel the parents.

But when you talk about 1 in 100,000 a GP is unlikely to ever see one and hence I think this often leads to all sorts of misdiagnosis. I don’t know what the solution is, but it does probably mean a lot more referrals to centres of excellence.

Now when we come to coeliac disease then we may well be talking about 1 in 100, so GPs should come across quite a few. But then there are still doctors who disbelieve all these faddy food allergies. I first came across a serious coeliac in about 1971, so I would have thought they’d accept reality by now!

But statistics should mean that GPs are aware of large numbers of coeliacs.

Can the large amount of Prozac and other anti-depressents being dispensed have anything to do with a large misdiagnosis of coeliacs?

After all giving up gluten isn’t so bad! Says he with a large glass of Tarrango to hand!