Murtada Alsaif considers the challenges facing psychiatrists in diagnosing bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. He reports on a recent qualitative study that explores the practical experience of psychiatrists and nurses and concludes that clinical diagnostic practice cannot reliably distinguish the two conditions.
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Marcus Munafo explores a recent study that uses a machine learning approach across two trials (STARD*D and CO-MED) to try and predict treatment outcomes (primarily focusing on the antidepressant citalopram) for depression.
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Only 4 small studies at high risk of bias were available for this review of cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) for diagnosis of vertical root fracture, providing insufficient evidence to suggest that CBCT is a reliable test.
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Akshay Nair explores the results of a systematic review of cognitive tests for dementia and mild cognitive impairment, which focuses on the MMSE, Mini-Cog, ACE-R and MoCA instruments. Along the way he explains how diagnostic tests work and how sensitivity and specificity are useful measures to get your head around.
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Samei Huda reviews a meta-analysis of multivariate pattern recognition studies, which aims to detect neuroimaging biomarkers for schizophrenia.
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Can blood-based diagnostic panels help us reduce the misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment often experienced by people with bipolar disorder? Murtada Alsaif reviews a recent retrospective study that has some encouraging findings for biologically identifying the disease.
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This diagnostic review compared two computer aided adjunctive tests for oral cancer. Oral CDX and DNA-image cytometry. The results suggest that DNA-image cytometry has a highly significant potential over OralCDx brush biopsy as an accurate and simple diagnostic tool for clinically suspected oral precancer and oral cancer.
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Tracey Roberts summarises a recent diagnostic test review, which suggests that early improvement can act as a predictor of later response to antipsychotics in schizophrenia.
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This review included 12 small in vitro and in vivo studies of Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) for the diagnosis of a root fracture. While the data suggest the ability to detect root fractures in non-endodontically treated teeth, the findings should be interpreted with caution.
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In this blog, Nicky Butler considers a systematic review that investigated the effectiveness of interventions designed to reduce the use of imaging and, consequently, improve both medical practice and my patients’ outcomes.
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