ziektegraad

Ziektegraad is a Dutch term describing the severity or seriousness of a disease in an individual. It indicates how far the illness has progressed and how much it impairs health and daily functioning. The exact meaning of ziektegraad depends on the disease and the clinical context; it is not a single universal scale.

Assessment combines clinical symptoms, physical examination, and objective data such as laboratory results, imaging, and sometimes tissue pathology. Depending on the disease, the ziektegraad may be expressed on ordinal scales (for example mild, moderate, severe), as numeric grades, or as stages tied to measurable parameters.

In oncology, the term is often used to refer to the histological grade of tumors (G1–G3, or Gx), which reflects how abnormal the cancer cells look under the microscope and is used to inform prognosis and treatment. In respiratory or cardiovascular diseases, severity is frequently described with disease-specific scales: COPD severity (GOLD stages), heart failure class (NYHA), or CKD stages. In general medicine, clinicians may describe a disease as mild, moderate, or severe based on symptom burden, functional status, and impact on quality of life.

Ziektegraad is a guide for prognosis and management but is a snapshot that can change with treatment or disease progression. It complements, rather than replaces, other classifications such as staging, which often focuses on the extent of disease, and prognostic models that combine many variables to estimate outcomes.