The pre-therapeutic classification of co-morbidity in chronic disease

In a patient with a particular index disease, the term co-morbidity refers to any additional co-existing ailment. The failure to classify and analyze co-morbid diseases has led to many difficulties in medical statistics. The omissions create misleading data in mortality rates for a general population, and in fatality rates for an individual disease. In particular, neglect of co-morbidity may cause spurious comparisons during the planning and...