Hierarchical clustering applied to chronic pain drawings identifies undiagnosed fibromyalgia: implications for busy clinical practice

Currently-used assessments for fibromyalgia require clinicians to suspect a fibromyalgia diagnosis, a process susceptible to unintentional bias. Automated assessments of standard patient-reported outcomes (PROs) could be used to prompt formal assessments, potentially reducing bias. We sought to determine whether hierarchical clustering of patient-reported pain distribution on digital body map drawings predicted fibromyalgia diagnosis. Using an observational cohort from the University of Pittsburgh ’s Patient Outcomes Repository for Treatment registry, which contains PROs and electronic medical record data from 21,423 patients (3/17/2016-6/25/2019) presenting to pain management clinics, we tested the hypothesis that hierarchical clustering subgroup was associated with fibromyalgia diagnosis, as determined by ICD-10 code.
Source: The Journal of Pain - Category: Materials Science Authors: Source Type: research