Importance of Rare Conditions Deserving Attention in Medical Research
Jessie Z -
Good Morning Everyone,
I hope this blog post finds you well! After meeting with a gynecologist in regards to my research project, I’ve obtained a greater understanding of what patients go through during the diagnosis process. One of her patients with Bartholin gland hyperplasia actually went through five years of searching for the right diagnosis and treatment. She was dismissed a lot by other physicians, and this is likely a common experience for patients who have conditions as rare as Bartholin gland hyperplasia. To really put this into perspective, a Bartholin cyst, which BGH is most misdiagnosed as, is not considered rare, affecting around 2% of women at some point in their lives. Though I don’t have an exact percentage for BGH, I assume it is significantly lower than 2%, which I think is an already low percentage. I can’t imagine the amount of stress these patients go through, given the complicated nature of tumors and the uncertainty surrounding its pathology. For this reason, no matter how rare a condition is, I believe it is just as important to pursue research and advance our knowledge on the topic.
Transitioning back to the subject matter of MRIs, which I briefly touched upon in my last post, there is a prominent difference between Bartholin gland cyst and Bartholin gland hyperplasia on MRI. A cyst is fluid filled and thus appears bright white, just like how the bladder does. In contrast, hyperplasia shows up dark, somewhat similar to how muscles appear. Dr. Tan goes into detail about all the classic imaging features she found, but that will be a topic for a later blog post.
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful rest of the week!
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