We present the Danish Disease Trajectory Browser (DTB), a tool for exploring almost 25 years of data from the Danish National Patient Register. In the dataset comprising 7.2 million patients and 122 million admissions, users can identify diagnosis pairs with statistically significant directionality and combine them to linear disease trajectories. Users can search for one or more disease codes (ICD-10 classification) and explore disease progression patterns via an array of functionalities. For example, a set of linear trajectories can be merged into a disease trajectory network displaying the entire multimorbidity spectrum of a disease in a single connected graph. Using data from the Danish Register for Causes of Death mortality is also included. The tool is disease-agnostic across both rare and common diseases and is showcased by exploring multimorbidity in Down syndrome (ICD-10 code Q90) and hypertension (ICD-10 code I10). Finally, we show how search results can be customized and exported from the browser in a format of choice (i.e. JSON, PNG, JPEG and CSV).
Introduction
Clinical trials involving patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) continue to try to identify disease‐modifying treatments. Although trials are designed to meet regulatory and registration requirements, many do not measure outcomes of the disease most relevant to key stakeholders.
Methods
A systematic review sought research that elicited information from people with AD, their caregivers, and health‐care professionals on which outcomes of the disease were important. Studies published in any language between 2008 and 2017 were included.
Results
Participants in 34 studies described 32 outcomes of AD. These included clinical (memory, mental health), practical (ability to undertake activities of daily living, access to health information), and personal (desire for patient autonomy, maintenance of identity) outcomes of the disease.
Discussion
Evidence elicited directly from the people most affected by AD reveals a range of disease outcomes that are relevant to them but are not commonly captured in clinical trials of new treatments.
Introduction
Similar symptoms, comorbidities and suboptimal diagnostic tests make the distinction between different types of dementia difficult, although this is essential for improved work‐up and treatment optimization.
Methods
We calculated temporal disease trajectories of earlier multi‐morbidities in Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia and vascular dementia (VaD) patients using the Danish National Patient Registry covering all hospital encounters in Denmark (1994 to 2016). Subsequently, we reduced the comorbidity space dimensionality using a non‐linear technique, uniform manifold approximation and projection.
Results
We found 49,112 and 24,101 patients that were diagnosed with AD or VaD, respectively. Temporal disease trajectories showed very similar disease patterns before the dementia diagnosis. Stratifying patients by age and reducing the comorbidity space to two dimensions, showed better discrimination between AD and VaD patients in early‐onset dementia.
Discussion
Similar age‐associated comorbidities, the phenomenon of mixed dementia, and misdiagnosis create great challenges in discriminating between classical subtypes of dementia.
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