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Asymptomatic

Asymptomatic (or clinically silent) is an adjective categorising the medical conditions (i.e., injuries or diseases) that patients carry but without experiencing their symptoms, despite an explicit diagnosis (e.g., a positive medical test).

Not to be confused with Asymptotic.

Pre-symptomatic is the adjective categorising the time periods during which the medical conditions are asymptomatic.


Subclinical and paucisymptomatic are other adjectives categorising either the asymptomatic infections (i.e., subclinical infections), or the psychosomatic illnesses and mental disorders expressing a subset of symptoms but not the entire set an explicit medical diagnosis requires.

Examples[edit]

An example of an asymptomatic disease is cytomegalovirus (CMV) which is a member of the herpes virus family. "It is estimated that 1% of all newborns are infected with CMV, but the majority of infections are asymptomatic." (Knox, 1983; Kumar et al. 1984)[1] In some diseases, the proportion of asymptomatic cases can be important. For example, in multiple sclerosis it is estimated that around 25% of the cases are asymptomatic, with these cases detected postmortem or just by coincidence (as incidental findings) while treating other diseases.[2]

It may be contagious, and the contribution of asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infections to the transmission level of a disease helps set the required control measures to keep it from spreading.

[3]

It is not required that a person undergo treatment. It does not cause later medical problems such as and hyperlipidaemia.[4]

high blood pressure

Be alert to possible problems: asymptomatic makes a person vulnerable to Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome or beri-beri following intravenous glucose.[5]

hypothyroidism

For some conditions, treatment during the asymptomatic phase is vital. If one waits until symptoms develop, it is too late for survival or to prevent damage.

Knowing that a condition is asymptomatic is important because:

Mental health[edit]

Subclinical or subthreshold conditions are those for which the full diagnostic criteria are not met and have not been met in the past, although symptoms are present. This can mean that symptoms are not severe enough to merit a diagnosis,[6] or that symptoms are severe but do not meet the criteria of a condition.[7]

Symptomatic

Subclinical infection