What does rule out mean in medical terms?

Answer 1

"Rule out" is another term for differential diagnosis. The differential is a list of possible conditions that could explain the patient's symptoms. Through continued history, exam, and lab/imaging studies, the clinician narrows the differential to come to a diagnosis. When reading "rule out" in a medical narrative, you can replace the phrase with the words "make sure it's not." So the phrase "chest pain, rule out myocardial infarction" can be read as "chest pain, make sure it's not a heart attack."

differential diagnosis.

Answer 2

"Ruled out" means that a doctor or team of doctors have taken a patient's complaint, such as "coughing up blood", and come up with a list of possible diagnoses, which they will then do extensive testing for to "rule out" each diagnosis until they come to the diagnosis that most fits the complaint of the patient..

For example, they might look at "pneumonia" as a possible diagnosis for this complaint.

They would draw labs, do an X-ray, take vital signs, and other tests will be completed.

After this testing, if all of it is NEGATIVE for pneumonia, they would determine that this complaint is not pneumonia. This would be written down as "ruled out pneumonia". The abbreviation for "ruled out" is "R/O".