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Concept
Asymptomatic
Summary
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).
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.
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) 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.
Knowing that a condition is asymptomatic is important because:
It may develop symptoms later and only then require treatment.
It may resolve itself or become benign.
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.
It is not required that a person undergo treatment. It does not cause later medical problems such as high blood pressure and hyperlipidaemia.
Be alert to possible problems: asymptomatic hypothyroidism makes a person vulnerable to Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome or beri-beri following intravenous glucose.
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.
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