Medical terms beginning with C

A drug used to treat cancer.

Given in cycles rather than continuously, so the healthy tissues that renew fastest have time to recover between rounds.

The muscles, bones, and joints that make up the area of the body between the neck and the abdomen.

A chest x-ray uses a brief pulse of radiation to produce an image of the lungs, heart, and bones of the chest for evaluation.

An anatomy term for an X-shaped crossing (for example, of nerves or tendons).

A professional who is responsible for making a child's hospital and treatment experience less scary.

Chimeric describes an organism, tissue, or molecule composed of genetically distinct cell populations or parts originating from more than one source.

In traditional Chinese medicine, meridians are channels that form a network in the body, through which qi (vital energy) flows.

The root of this plant has been used in some cultures to treat certain medical problems.

A drug used to help diagnose gastrinomas (tumors that cause too much gastric acid to be made) and other problems with the pancreas.

The tough material that forms insect shells and fungal cell walls, and a useful drug target precisely because humans do not make it.

Chlorine is a chemical element widely used to disinfect water and surfaces by killing bacteria and other microorganisms.

A solid lump made of leukemia cells growing outside the marrow, which can appear before anything abnormal shows up in the blood.

A substance being studied in the diagnosis and treatment of glioma (a type of brain cancer) and other types of cancer.

Location drives almost everything here, since a tumor deep inside the liver behaves and is assessed quite differently from one near the intestine.

The name is precise, but it is not always used precisely, and some writing applies it loosely to any cancer of the bile ducts.

Most of these stones sit silently in the gallbladder for life; the trouble begins only when one moves and blocks a duct.

Yellow skin, itching, dark urine and pale stools all trace back to bile that cannot leave the liver by its usual route.

There is no good or bad cholesterol, only good and bad carriers: the molecule is identical, and the particle transporting it differs.

Choline is an essential nutrient the body uses to build cell membranes and the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, and to move fat out of the liver.