sjukdomsbild

Sjukdomsbild is a Swedish term commonly translated as disease presentation or clinical picture. It refers to the aggregate of features that characterize how a disease manifests in a patient, including subjective symptoms, objective signs, laboratory or imaging findings, and the time course and functional impact. It is used to frame a clinical assessment and distinguishes between the general description of a disease and the patient-specific expression.

Components include symptoms reported by the patient (pain, fatigue, fever), signs observed by clinicians (rash, tachycardia), measurable findings (lab values, imaging results), and the evolution of the illness (acute, subacute, chronic, relapsing). The sjukdomsbild may evolve over time and may differ between individuals due to age, sex, genetics, comorbidity, and prior treatment.

In clinical practice, documenting the sjukdomsbild supports differential diagnosis, informs choices of diagnostic tests, guides treatment planning, and helps estimate prognosis and functional impact. It is distinct from the underlying disease mechanism, which is studied in pathophysiology.

Limitations include variability and overlap with other conditions; some presentations are atypical. In epidemiology and research, standardized descriptions of sjukdomsbild enable comparisons across settings and populations.