Whipple's disease differential diagnosis

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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief:

Overview

[Disease name] must be differentiated from other diseases that cause [clinical feature 1], [clinical feature 2], and [clinical feature 3], such as [differential dx1], [differential dx2], and [differential dx3].

OR

[Disease name] must be differentiated from [[differential dx1], [differential dx2], and [differential dx3].

Differentiating X from other Diseases

• [Disease name] must be differentiated from other diseases that cause [clinical feature 1], [clinical feature 2], and [clinical feature 3], such as [differential dx1], [differential dx2], and [differential dx3].
• [Disease name] must be differentiated from [[differential dx1], [differential dx2], and [differential dx3].

• As [disease name] manifests in a variety of clinical forms, differentiation must be established in accordance with the particular subtype. [Subtype name 1] must be differentiated from other diseases that cause [clinical feature 1], such as [differential dx1] and [differential dx2]. In contrast, [subtype name 2] must be differentiated from other diseases that cause [clinical feature 2], such as [differential dx3] and [differential dx4].

Differentiating Whipple's disease from other Diseases

The following diseases have presentations similar to that of Whipple's disease.

• Celiac Disease
• Chronic diarrhea
• Clonorchiasis
• Parkinson's disease

The table below summarizes the findings that differentiate fatty causes of chronic diarrhea

Cause	Osmotic gap		History	Physical exam	Gold standard	Treatment
	< 50 mOsm per kg	> 50 mOsm per kg*
lactose intolerance	-	+	Bloating, Flatulence Abdominal pain, and/or chronic diarrhea after ingestion of lactose	Abdominal tenderness when palpated in severe disease Fever Hypotension Tachycardia Nausea and vomiting	Lactose breath hydrogen test	Restriction of lactose and maintain calcium and vitamin D intake.
Celiac sprue	-	+	Diarrhea with bulky, foul-smelling stools Growth failure in children, Weight loss, Anemia, Neurologic disorders Osteopenia	Neuropsychiatric disease Dermatitis herpetiformis Arthritis Iron deficiency Metabolic bone disease Hyposplenism Kidney disease Idiopathic pulmonary hemosiderosis	Immunoglobulin A (IgA) anti-tissue transglutaminase (TTG) antibody followed by upper endoscopy with biopsy.	Dietary counseling, elimination of gluten in the diet.
Whipple disease	-	+	Arthralgias Weight loss Diarrhea Abdominal pain	Leukocytopenia Thrombocytopenia Skin hyperpigmentation	Upper endoscopy with biopsies of the small intestine for T. whipplei testing (histology with PAS staining, polymerase chain reaction [[[PCR]]] testing, and immunohistochemistry)	Doxycycline and hydroxychloroquine are bactericidal

Preferred Template Table

Diseases	Laboratory Findings				Physical Examination				History and Symptoms				Other Findings
	Lab Test 1	Lab Test 2	Lab Test 3	Lab Test 4	Physical Finding 1	Physical Finding 2	Physical Finding 3	Physical Finding 4	Finding 1	Finding 2	Finding 3	Finding 4
Differential Diagnosis 1			+
Differential Diagnosis 2	↑			-
Differential Diagnosis 3		↓
Differential Diagnosis 4
Differential Diagnosis 5

Use if the above table can not be made

Differential Diagnosis	Similar Features	Differentiating Features
Differential 1	On [physical exam; history; diagnostic test; imaging], [Differential 1] {has; demonstrates} [feature 1], [feature 2], [feature 3] also observed in [disease name].	On [physical exam; history; diagnostic test; imaging], [Differential 1] {has; demonstrates} [feature 1], [feature 2], [feature 3] that distinguish it from [disease name].
Differential 2	On [physical exam; history; diagnostic test; imaging], [Differential 1] {has; demonstrates} [feature 1], [feature 2], [feature 3] also observed in [disease name].	On [physical exam; history; diagnostic test; imaging], [Differential 1] {has; demonstrates} [feature 1], [feature 2], [feature 3] that distinguish it from [disease name].
Differential 3	On [physical exam; history; diagnostic test; imaging], [Differential 1] {has; demonstrates} [feature 1], [feature 2], [feature 3] also observed in [disease name].	On [physical exam; history; diagnostic test; imaging], [Differential 1] {has; demonstrates} [feature 1], [feature 2], [feature 3] that distinguish it from [disease name].
Differential 4	On [physical exam; history; diagnostic test; imaging], [Differential 1] {has; demonstrates} [feature 1], [feature 2], [feature 3] also observed in [disease name].	On [physical exam; history; diagnostic test; imaging], [Differential 1] {has; demonstrates} [feature 1], [feature 2], [feature 3] that distinguish it from [disease name].
Differential 5	On [physical exam; history; diagnostic test; imaging], [Differential 1] {has; demonstrates} [feature 1], [feature 2], [feature 3] also observed in [disease name].	On [physical exam; history; diagnostic test; imaging], [Differential 1] {has; demonstrates} [feature 1], [feature 2], [feature 3] that distinguish it from [disease name].