differential diagnosis

Noun

differential diagnosis (countable and uncountable, plural differential diagnoses)

1. The process of determining which disease, from a set of possible candidates, is causing a patient's symptoms.
   • Case reports in arthropathies less often rely on macroscopy alone[…]. A factor here is that these tend to concentrate on the rarer forms of arthritis […] that require careful differential diagnosis for which the radiological appearance is often critical.2023, Simon Mays, “The Macroscopic Study of Human Skeletal Paleopathology” (chapter 2), in The Routledge Handbook of Paleopathology, Routledge, →DOI, →ISBN, page 23
2. A list of possible causes of a primary symptom or a collection of symptoms.
   • The differential diagnosis for febrile patients with a rash is extensive.2000 August 15, Harry D. McKinnon and Thomas Howard, “Evaluating the Febrile Patient with a Rash”, in American Family Physician, American Academy of Family Physicians, page 804