Checklist Helps Diagnose Type Of Dyspnea

New research from China may help doctors better identify the symptomatic differences between dyspnea and medically unexplained dyspnea (MUD). Differentiating between the two conditions is often difficult; while patients with both dyspnea and MUD present with difficult or labored breathing, only those with dyspnea have cardiopulmonary explanations for their condition. To investigate the descriptors of each condition, researchers administered a symptom checklist to 291 patients, which included 61 spontaneously reported descriptors of dyspnea. A total of 96 were diagnosed with MUD after reporting factors such as “urge to breathe,” “affective dyspnea,” “anxiety,” and “tingling.” The remaining 195 patients reported “wheezing,” “cough and sputum,” and “palpitation,” which were indicative of cardiopulmonary disease and dyspnea. Researchers conclude that this method allows for a satisfactory separation of patients with MUD and cardiopulmonary disease. This study is published in the April issue of the journal CHEST.