[Evaluation of clinical symptoms of Addison's disease]

A total of 103 patients with Addison's disease were examined. The task was to determine the information content of the clinical symptoms of Addison's disease in their interrelationship. The theorem of the multiplication of probability of independent events and probability of the appearance of at least one event were used. On the basis of the above mathematical method it has been established that the most informative syndromes of Addison's disease are the combination of asthenia and adynamia with mass deficiency, arterial hypotension, skin pigmentation and nervous-psychic break-down. In comparing clinical and mathematical results it has been shown that a simultaneous appearance of the signs of the dyspeptic syndrome, its combinations with the pain abdominal syndrome and mass deficiency point out to a possibility of the Addisonian crisis or the onset of its development. At least one of three signs of muscular or articular involvement is predicted in each patient with Addison's disease. A table given in the paper makes it possible to determine the information content of numerous complexes of symptoms of Addison's disease.