In
medicine, a
differential diagnosis is the distinguishing of a particular
disease or condition from others that present similar
symptoms. Differential diagnostic procedures are used by
physicians and other trained medical professionals to
diagnose the specific disease in a
patient, or, at least, to eliminate any imminently life-threatening conditions. Often each individual option of a possible disease is called a differential diagnosis (for example,
bronchitis could be a differential diagnosis in the evaluation of a cough that ends up with a final diagnosis of
common cold).