Scoring system to facilitate diagnosis of Gaucher disease.

BACKGROUND

Gaucher disease (GD) manifests heterogeneously and other conditions are often misdiagnosed in its place, leading to diagnostic delays. The Gaucher Earlier Diagnosis Consensus (GED-C) initiative proposed a point-scoring system (PSS) based on the signs and covariables that are most indicative of GD to help clinicians identify which individuals to test for GD.

AIMS: To validate the PSS retrospectively in a test population including patients with GD and other conditions with overlapping manifestations.

METHODS

Four cohorts of adults with GD, liver disease, haematological malignancy or immune thrombocytopenia were identified from hospital records. Clinical data were audited for GED-C factors identified as potentially indicative of GD and aggregate scores calculated (sum of scores/number of factors) based on published PSS weightings. Threshold discriminatory PSS scores, sensitivity and specificity were determined by receiver-operating characteristic analysis.

RESULTS

Among 100 patients (GD, n = 25; non-GD, n = 75), analyses based on 11 possible factors estimated group mean (standard deviation) PSS scores of: GD (n = 14), 1.08 (0.25); non-GD (n = 38), 0.58 (0.31). Mean between-group difference (95% confidence interval) was -0.49 (-0.68, -0.31) and area under the receiver-operating characteristic analysis curve (95% confidence interval) was 0.88 (0.78, 0.97). A threshold PSS score of 0.82 identified all 14 patients with GD in the analysis set (100% sensitivity) and 27 of 38 patients in the non-GD group (71% specificity). Patients with liver disease and haematological malignancy were most likely to have manifestations overlapping GD.

CONCLUSIONS

Preliminary validation of the GED-C PSS discriminated effectively between patients with GD and those with overlapping signs.