Editorial Editorial The ‘Red Flag Instrument ’ for Early Detection of Crohn’s

The term ‘diagnostic delay ’ describes the time interval between the first appearance of disease-related symptoms and the diagnosis of a particular disease. Diagnostic delay can be separated into an interval from first appearance of disease-related symptoms until first medi-cal attention is sought [‘patient-related interval’], and the interval from first contact with the physician until diagnosis of the under-lying disease is established [‘physician-related interval’] [Figure 1]. Several factors such as auto-medication by the patient or access to the primary care physician or a specialist can influence the length of diagnostic delay. Several recently published studies have revealed that length of diagnostic delay can indeed represent an issue for at least a propor-tion of patients with Crohn’s disease [CD]. Data from the Swiss IBD Cohort Study in 932 CD patients found a median diagnostic delay of 12 months1; 25 % of all CD patients needed> 24 months afte