Lol, Mark...a great excuse to avoid relations?!
"To be determined" is going to be presenting on this topic on the last day of ISNVD in February: Is CCSVI a disease?
We have a whole thread here explaining that it should be considered a syndrome.
But here is a definition of disease:
http://chronicfatigue.about.com/b/2011/ ... ndrome.htmQuote:
Defining disease is a little more complicated. Many medical dictionaries define it as a disorder in a system or organ that effects the body's function. Some, however, add more requirements:
Disease: a morbid entity characterized usually by at least two of these criteria:
Recognized etiologic agent (cause)
Identifiable group of signs and symptoms
Consistent anatomic alterations
and syndrome:
Quote:
Syndrome: a collection of signs and symptoms known to frequently appear together but without a known cause.
Looking at these two definitions, it seems to me that CCSVI is a disease. Etiologic agent would be congenital vascular malformation. Identifiable signs and symptoms (if we leave MS itself out, which we should, since it complicates things) would be fatigue, weakness, vision impairment, impaired balance, and impaired cognition as symptoms. Reflux in the jugular veins, all the zamboni doppler criteria, and visible signs of congestion in the retinal fundus are signs. Consistent anatomic alterations would be the malformed valves themselves, as well as septums, hypoplasias, compressions of the renal or iliac veins. These are visible upon autopsy.
While we may presently refer to it as a syndrome currently in order to seek treatment, I would say that it is more accurately a disease and that research will bear this out.