Disease areas

This branch covers disease background for medical writing, divided by clinical or therapeutic area, with rare diseases considered as a class. The parts address the conditions, mechanisms, diagnosis, burden and management relevant to each area. Normal anatomy and physiology, general diagnostic principles, treatments spanning several areas and disease-specific trial design belong to neighbouring branches.

• Cancer — risk and prevention, treatment biology and approaches, and breast cancer in young women
• Infection, immunity and allergy — viruses, vaccines, sepsis, inflammation, food reactions and antimicrobial resistance
• Metabolic and endocrine disease — obesity, diabetes and metabolic liver disease with biopsy assessment
• Cardiovascular disease — hypertension, coronary heart disease, arrhythmia and cardiovascular risk in women
• Respiratory disease — asthma, its diagnosis, assessment and management
• Neurology — nonconvulsive seizures and nonconvulsive status epilepticus
• Mental health — attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, eating disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder
• Women’s health — endometriosis, its burden, recognition, diagnosis and treatment
• Pain — fibromyalgia, its presentation, diagnosis, proposed mechanisms and management
• Rare diseases — definitions, numbers, diagnostic delay, treatment gaps and European organisations and research initiatives