{"id":7856,"date":"2020-08-12T20:32:19","date_gmt":"2020-08-12T20:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicalcriteria.com\/web\/?p=7856"},"modified":"2026-01-07T20:24:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:24:27","slug":"diagnostic-and-classification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicalcriteria.com\/web\/diagnostic-and-classification\/","title":{"rendered":"Differences Between Diagnostic and Classification Criteria"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"99c380e4b4a7b96c35d7ddf7dcb434e8\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- MC 2019- Horizontal -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-0127150553352455\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3806776041\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>The majority of rheumatic diseases are multisystem disorders with poorly understood etiology; they tend to be heterogeneous in their presentation, course, and outcome and do not have a single clinical, laboratory, pathologic, or radiologic feature that could serve as a \u201cgold standard\u201d in support of diagnosis and\/or classification.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Differences Between Diagnostic and Classification Criteria<\/strong><\/p>\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;\" border=\"1\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 47.6027%;\"><strong>Classi\ufb01cation Criteria<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 52.3973%;\"><strong>Diagnostic Criteria<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 47.6027%;\">Classi\ufb01cation criteria are standardized de\ufb01nitions that are primarily intended to enable clinical studies to have uniform cohorts for research<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 52.3973%;\">Diagnostic criteria are a set of signs, symptoms, and tests developed for use in routine clinical care to guide the care of individual patients<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 47.6027%;\">Need to de\ufb01ne (relatively) homogenous group that can be compared across studies and geographic regions<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 52.3973%;\">Need to be broad and must re\ufb02ect the all possible different features and severity of a disease (heterogeneity)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 47.6027%;\">Very high speci\ufb01city is required, even if some loss in sensitivity<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 52.3973%;\">Both speci\ufb01city and sensitivity need to be very high, approaching 100%, which is dif\ufb01cult to achieve<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 47.6027%;\">Single universal classi\ufb01cation criteria can be applied to different geographical regions, race and ethnicities<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 52.3973%;\">Single universal diagnostic criteria cannot be used for making diagnosis due to different disease prevalence in different geographic areas, race and ethnicities<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 47.6027%;\">Classi\ufb01cation criteria are possible for disease with and without true \u201cgold standards\u201d (e.g., monosodium urate crystals in gout<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 52.3973%;\">Diagnostic criteria are possible for disease with a true \u201cgold standard\u201d like MSU crystals in gout. For such diseases, the classi\ufb01cation and diagnostic criteria can be very similar. For diseases without gold standard, development of diagnostic criteria poses signi\ufb01cant challenges<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 47.6027%;\">Differences in resources and feasibility has limited effect on classi\ufb01cation criteria<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 52.3973%;\">Differences in resources and feasibility signi\ufb01cantly effect development of diagnostic criteria<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 47.6027%;\">Classi\ufb01cation criteria are for research, and therefore, should have no or little impact on billing and reimbursement<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 52.3973%;\">Diagnostic criteria are for diagnosis, and therefore, have implications for billing and reimbursement<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 47.6027%;\">Classi\ufb01cation criteria have no treatment implications for patients<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 52.3973%;\">Diagnostic criteria have treatment implications for patients<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 47.6027%;\">Health care priorities of different geographical areas do not in\ufb02uence classi\ufb01cation criteria<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 52.3973%;\">Health care priorities of different geographic areas may in\ufb02uence diagnostic criteria<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 47.6027%;\">Classi\ufb01cation of a disease can be accomplished by a set of criteria with reasonable sensitivity and speci\ufb01city<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 52.3973%;\">Diagnosis is a complex multi-step process by a physician, which is dif\ufb01cult to accomplish with a single set of criteria<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>References:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Aggarwal R, Ringold S, Khanna D, et al. Distinctions between diagnostic and classification criteria?. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2015;67(7):891-897. <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/25776731\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">[Medline]<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Belmonte-Serrano MA. The myth of the distinction between classification and diagnostic criteria.\u00a0<i>Reumatol Clin<\/i>. 2015;11(3):188-189. <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/25523981\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">[Medline]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Created Aug 03, 2020.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sorry, this entry is only available in Espa\u00f1ol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"no","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[640],"tags":[166,167,16,15,14,13,2234,2235],"class_list":["post-7856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epidemiology","tag-clasificacion","tag-classification","tag-criteria","tag-criterios","tag-diagnostic","tag-diagnostico","tag-diferencias","tag-differences"],"modified_by":"Guillermo Firman","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicalcriteria.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicalcriteria.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicalcriteria.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicalcriteria.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicalcriteria.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7856"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/medicalcriteria.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9408,"href":"https:\/\/medicalcriteria.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7856\/revisions\/9408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicalcriteria.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicalcriteria.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicalcriteria.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}