Identifying rare diseases using electronic medical records: the example of allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to evaluate whether primary care electronic medical records (EMRs) from patients with severe asthma can be used to identify allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) cases.

Methods

This cross-sectional feasibility study was conducted in adults with active and severe asthma registered with the Clinical Practice Research Datalink. A set of keywords flagged terms potentially indicative of ABPA in free-text comments of patients' EMRs to produce a grid on the basis of keywords' hit or miss. The grid was examined for occurrence and concurrence of keywords to discern patterns of concurrence potentially indicative of an underlying diagnosis of ABPA.

Results

The analyses included 3 653 169 free-text items from 21 054 patients. In total,

SUBMITTER: Maguire A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5573984 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature