SynthesisThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2023
Diagnostic windows in non-neoplastic diseases: a systematic review.
Synthesis in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Prediagnostic primary care consultations and imaging in emergency-diagnosed versus referred patients with lung cancer: a population-based linked data study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2026Article
- Diagnostic Timing and Ovarian Cancer Survival.JAMA network open · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundInvestigating changes in prediagnostic healthcare utilisation can help identify how much earlier conditions could be diagnosed. Such 'diagnostic windows' are established for cancer but remain relatively unexplored for non-neoplastic conditions.
aimTo extract evidence on the presence and length of diagnostic windows for non-neoplastic conditions. DESIGN AND
settingA systematic review of studies of prediagnostic healthcare utilisation was carried out.
methodA search strategy was developed to identify relevant studies from PubMed and Connected Papers. Data were extracted on prediagnostic healthcare use, and evidence of diagnostic window presence and length was assessed.
resultsOf 4340 studies screened, 27 were included, covering 17 non-neoplastic conditions, including both chronic (for example, Parkinson's disease) and acute conditions (for example, stroke). Prediagnostic healthcare events included primary care encounters and presentations with relevant symptoms. For 10 conditions, sufficient evidence to determine diagnostic window presence and length was available, ranging from 28 days (herpes simplex encephalitis) to 9 years (ulcerative colitis). For the remaining conditions, diagnostic windows were likely to be present, but insufficient study duration was often a barrier to robustly determining their length, meaning that diagnostic window length may exceed 10 years for coeliac disease, for example.
conclusionEvidence of changing healthcare use before diagnosis exists for many non-neoplastic conditions, establishing that early diagnosis is possible, in principle. In particular, some conditions may be detectable many years earlier than they are currently diagnosed. Further research is required to accurately estimate diagnostic windows and to determine how much earlier diagnosis may be possible, and how this might be achieved.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.