-emia
Meaning of -emia: Whatever the root names, this ending places it in the bloodstream or describes the state of the blood itself.
Definition of -emia
The suffix -emia refers to a condition of the blood, usually the presence of a substance in it or an abnormal amount of one. Hyperglycemia is too much sugar in the blood, bacteremia is bacteria in the blood, hypoxemia is too little oxygen carried in it. British and older texts spell the ending -aemia, and the two forms mean exactly the same thing.
What does the ending describe?
The blood as a place, and what is found there. Most terms built on it name a substance and pair it with a prefix stating whether there is too much or too little, which is why so many arrive in matched pairs. Blood is easy to sample and the same measurement can be repeated, so this group of terms fills laboratory reports more than almost any other. A raised or lowered result is a finding rather than a diagnosis, and the term simply records the number that was outside the usual range.
Why does anemia not mean an absence of blood?
Because the literal reading and the medical meaning parted company long ago. Broken into parts the word says without blood, but anemia means a shortage of red cells or of the hemoglobin they carry, so less oxygen reaches the tissues. Leukemia is a second case where the parts mislead. It reads as white blood, and it names a cancer of the cells that produce white blood cells, not merely their presence. Both terms were coined from what could be seen down a microscope or in a settled sample, and both kept their names once the underlying disease was understood.
How do the parts fit together?
| Term | Parts | What it names |
|---|---|---|
| hyperglycemia | hyper, above, and glyc, sugar | blood sugar above the usual range |
| hypercalcemia | hyper, above, and calc, calcium | a raised blood calcium level |
| bacteremia | bacter, bacteria | bacteria present in the bloodstream |
| uremia | ur, urea | waste products building up in the blood |
| hypoxemia | hypo, below, and ox, oxygen | too little oxygen carried in the blood |
A closely related ending, uria, places the same substance in the urine instead, so glycosuria and hyperglycemia describe one problem measured in two different fluids. Interpreting either usually falls to a hematologist only when the blood cells themselves are at fault.
Terms built on -emia
53 entries in this glossary use this word part. Each one follows the same pattern.
- accelerated phase chronic myelogenous leukemia A phase of chronic myelogenous leukemia in which the disease is progressing.
- acute leukemia Immature blood cells fill the marrow, so the illness comes from what is missing rather…
- acute lymphoblastic leukemia An aggressive (fast-growing) type of leukemia (blood cancer) in which too many…
- acute lymphocytic leukemia An aggressive (fast-growing) type of leukemia (blood cancer) in which too many…
- acute myelogenous leukemia An aggressive (fast-growing) disease in which too many myeloblasts (immature white blood…
- acute myeloid leukemia The damage comes less from the tumor itself than from what stops being made once the…
- acute nonlymphocytic leukemia An aggressive (fast-growing) disease in which too many myeloblasts (immature white blood…
- anemia A condition in which the number of red blood cells is below normal.
- aplastic anemia A condition in which the bone marrow is unable to produce blood cells.
- B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia An aggressive (fast-growing) type of leukemia (blood cancer) in which too many B-cell…
- B-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia An aggressive (fast-growing) type of leukemia (blood cancer) in which too many B-cell…
- blastic phase chronic myelogenous leukemia A phase of chronic myelogenous leukemia in which 20% or more of the cells in the blood or…
- Burkitt leukemia A rare, fast-growing type of leukemia (blood cancer) in which too many white blood cells…
- chronic eosinophilic leukemia A disease in which too many eosinophils (a type of white blood cell) are found in the…
- chronic granulocytic leukemia A slowly progressing disease in which too many white blood cells (not lymphocytes) are…
- chronic leukemia Slow growing blood cancers whose cells mature far enough to function, which is why they…
- chronic myeloid leukemia This slow-progressing blood cancer results from an acquired genetic change that causes…
- chronic myelomonocytic leukemia A slowly progressing type of myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative disease in which too many…
- chronic neutrophilic leukemia A disease in which too many neutrophils (a type of white blood cell) are found in the…
- cold ischemia In surgery, the cooling of a tissue, organ, or body part after its blood supply has been…
- erythroleukemia Cancer of the blood-forming tissues in which large numbers of immature, abnormal red…
- essential thrombocythemia Essential thrombocythemia is a bone marrow disorder that causes an elevated platelet…
- Fanconi anemia A rare inherited disorder in which the bone marrow does not make blood cells.
- glycemia A measurement rather than a substance: the word names how much glucose is in the blood,…
- hairy cell leukemia A slow-growing blood cancer named for the fringed look of its cells, marked by a large…
- hypercalcemia Calcium is held in a narrow range, and pushing it above that range makes nerves and…
- hyperglycemia Blood sugar rising is not felt at first, which is why the level is measured rather than…
- hyperuricemia Hyperuricemia is an elevated blood level of uric acid that can result from increased…
- hypogammaglobulinemia A condition in which the level of immunoglobulins (antibodies) in the blood is low and…
- hypoglycemia Two symptom sets arrive in sequence, the adrenaline alarm first and confusion later, and…
- hypoxemia A pulse oximeter reports how full the hemoglobin is, not how much oxygen the blood holds,…
- ischemia A shortfall of blood supply to tissue, leaving it with too little oxygen for its needs.
- juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia A rare form of childhood leukemia in which cancer cells often spread into tissues such as…
- leukemia A cancer with no lump to find, because the affected cells travel in the bloodstream…
- lymphocytic leukemia One name covers two diseases that differ in nearly everything except the cell they come…
- meningeal leukemia A serious problem that may occur in leukemia.
- methemoglobinemia Methemoglobinemia occurs when methemoglobin, a form of hemoglobin unable to carry oxygen,…
- NK-LGL leukemia A type of leukemia in which large natural killer (NK) cells (a type of white blood cell)…
- pernicious anemia A type of anemia (low red blood cell count) caused by the body's inability to absorb…
- precursor B-lymphoblastic leukemia An aggressive (fast-growing) type of leukemia (blood cancer) in which too many B-cell…
- precursor T-lymphoblastic leukemia An aggressive (fast-growing) type of leukemia (blood cancer) in which too many T-cell…
- preleukemia A group of diseases in which the bone marrow does not make enough healthy blood cells.
- prolymphocytic leukemia A type of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), in which too many immature white blood…
- promyelocytic leukemia An aggressive (fast-growing) type of acute myeloid leukemia in which there are too many…
- septicemia An older word for bloodstream infection, largely retired because the danger comes from…
- sickle cell anemia An inherited disease in which the red blood cells have an abnormal crescent shape, block…
- smoldering leukemia A group of diseases in which the bone marrow does not make enough healthy blood cells.
- T-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia An aggressive (fast-growing) type of leukemia (blood cancer) in which too many T-cell…
- T-cell large granular lymphocyte leukemia A type of leukemia in which large T lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell) that contain…
- T-LGL leukemia A type of leukemia in which large T lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell) that contain…
- toxemia Disease caused by the spread of bacteria and their toxins in the bloodstream.
- Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia is a slow growing lymphoma marked by excess antibody…
- warm ischemia In surgery, keeping a tissue, organ, or body part at body temperature after its blood…
Also known as
Used in a sentence
The suffix -emia in the term indicated that the abnormality was measured in the blood.
Good to know
Anemia and leukemia both mislead when read literally, since one names a shortage of red cells rather than of blood and the other names a cancer rather than the simple presence of white cells.
Word origin
Where “-emia” comes from
From the Greek haima, meaning blood, through the ending -aimia; the American spelling drops the a, which is why the same ending appears as -aemia in British texts.