TV drama House leads doctors to mystery diagnosis

If you’re unlucky enough to be stricken with a rare medical condition, you’d better hope your doctor watches the right TV show.

That was the lesson for one German man with severe heart failure and a puzzling mix of symptoms including fever, blindness, deafness and enlarged lymph nodes, which baffled doctors for months. The man, aged 55, was diagnosed only when he was referred to Dr Juergen Schaefer, a fan of the US television medical drama, House.

“After five minutes, I knew what was wrong,” said Schaefer, who works at the Centre for Undiagnosed Diseases in Marburg, north of Frankfurt.