What is clinical staging?
Clinical staging is, simply, a more refined form of diagnosis. Its value is recognised in the treatment of malignancies, where quality of life and survival rely on the earliest possible delivery of effective interventions. However, it also has applicability in diseases as diverse as osteomyelitis, sarcoidosis, autoimmune diseases and idiopathic myelofibrosis.6-8 Clinical staging differs from conventional diagnostic practice in that it not only defines the extent of progression of a disorder at a particular point in time, but also where a person lies currently along the continuum of the course of an illness. The differentiation of early and milder clinical phenomena from those that accompany illness extension, progression and chronicity, lies at the heart of the concept, which therefore makes it potentially useful in young people. It enables the clinician to select treatments relevant to earlier stages of an illness, and assumes that such interventions will be both more effective and le
