Roughly 6 million patients go to the emergency department each year with skin and soft tissue infections, yet their medical evaluation is based on centuries-old guidelines: the “four cardinal signs” of inflammation — redness, heat, swelling and pain.
There is no diagnostic tool to help medical professionals determine which conditions require hospitalization for intravenous antibiotics and which can be treated with medicine at home, so treatment becomes a subjective decision, according to Joshua Reynolds, an emergency medicine physician and associate professor at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine(opens in new window).
“Throughout the history of medicine, we’ve relied on clinicians recognizing these four signs of inflammation, but physical diagnosis is hampered by variations in skin color and other underlying conditions,” Reynolds said. “Because doctors would rather err on the side of caution, we see a startling number of over-diagnoses.”