Published 21 November 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2665
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2665

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One third of diagnoses of asthma in Canada are wrong, study finds

David Spurgeon

1 Quebec

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Almost a third of people diagnosed as having asthma in Canada did not have the condition when retested using clinical guidelines, a study has found (CMAJ 2008;179:1121-31, doi:10.1503/cmaj.081665).

The study shows "a major problem in our system of asthma care: rather than just being overdiagnosed, asthma is misdiagnosed," said Matthew Stanbrook, deputy editor of CMAJ, the journal of the Canadian Medical Association, and Alan Kaplan, chairman of the Family Physician Airways Group of Canada, in an accompanying editorial (CMAJ 2008;179:1099-100, doi:10.1503/cmaj.081665).

Such misdiagnosis "has important and potentially serious consequences to both patients and the healthcare system," which may extend over many years, they say. Yet spirometry can accurately diagnose most cases of asthma.

"Physicians who do not use spirometry for their asthma patients should not be managing asthma, yet primary care physicians cannot avoid managing this very common disease," they say.

The authors . . . [Full text of this article]


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