Cargando…

Analysing detection of chronic diseases with prolonged sub-clinical periods: modelling and application to hypertension in the U.S.

BACKGROUND: We recently introduced a system of partial differential equations (PDEs) to model the prevalence of chronic diseases with a possibly prolonged state of asymptomatic, undiagnosed disease preceding a diagnosis. Common examples for such diseases include coronary heart disease, type 2 diabet...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Brinks, Ralph, Kaufmann, Sophie, Hoyer, Annika, Gregg, Edward W, Saal, Jürgen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6880443/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31775635
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-019-0845-2
Descripción
Sumario:BACKGROUND: We recently introduced a system of partial differential equations (PDEs) to model the prevalence of chronic diseases with a possibly prolonged state of asymptomatic, undiagnosed disease preceding a diagnosis. Common examples for such diseases include coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes or cancer. Widespread application of the new method depends upon mathematical treatment of the system of PDEs. METHODS: In this article, we study the existence and the uniqueness of the solution of the system of PDEs. To demonstrate the usefulness and importance of the system, we model the age-specific prevalence of hypertension in the US 1999–2010. RESULTS: The examinations of mathematical properties provide a way to solve the systems of PDEs by the method of characteristics. In the application to hypertension, we obtain a good agreement between modeled and surveyed age-specific prevalences. CONCLUSIONS: The described system of PDEs provides a practical way to examine the epidemiology of chronic diseases with a state of undiagnosed disease preceding a diagnosis.