Kairos in diagnostics

Abstract

Kairos has been a key concept in medicine for millennia and is frequently understood as “the right time” in relation to treatment. In this study we scrutinize kairos in the context of diagnostics. This has become highly topical as technological developments have caused diagnostics to be performed ever earlier in the disease development. Detecting risk factors, precursors, and predictors of disease (in biomarkers, pre-disease, and pre-pre-disease) has resulted in too early diagnoses, i.e., overdiagnoses. Nonetheless, despite vast advances in science and technology, diagnoses also come too late. Accordingly, timing diagnostics right is crucial. In this article we start with giving a brief overview of the etymology and general use of the concepts of kairos and diagnosis. Then we delimit kairos in diagnostics by analysing “too early” and “too late” diagnosis and by scrutinizing various phases of diagnostics. This leads us to define kairos of diagnostics as the time when there is potential for sufficient information for making a diagnosis that is most helpful for the person. It allows us to conclude that kairos is as important in diagnostics as in therapeutics.