Medical terms beginning with C

Because separate brain networks handle memory, attention and language, one of them can fail while the others carry on working normally.

A type of psychotherapy that helps patients change their behavior by changing the way they think and feel about certain things.

In research, a cohort is a defined group of people sharing a characteristic or experience, followed over time to study health outcomes.

A research study that compares a particular outcome (such as lung cancer) in groups of individuals who are alike in many ways but differ by a certain characteristic (for example, female nurses who…

A substance being studied in the treatment of cancer.

A substance being studied in the treatment of cancer.

In surgery, the cooling of a tissue, organ, or body part after its blood supply has been reduced or cut off.

In surgery, the time between the chilling of a tissue, organ, or body part after its blood supply has been reduced or cut off and the time it is warmed by having its blood supply restored.

When radioactive material is used to examine the thyroid with a scanner, nodules that collect less radioactive material than the surrounding thyroid tissue are considered "cold." A nodule that is…

A colectomy is a surgical procedure that removes all or part of the colon to treat disease or injury affecting that organ.

The word describes what the lining of the colon looks like, leaving the cause behind it to be worked out separately.

Swallowed collagen is broken down into amino acids like any other protein, so it does not arrive intact at skin or joints.

A term previously used to describe chronic diseases of the connective tissue (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and systemic sclerosis), but now is thought to be more…

An enzyme that cuts the body's main structural protein, used as a treatment where unwanted cords of that protein need dissolving.

The only bony strut holding the arm away from the chest, and one of the most frequently broken bones at any age.

The last part of a long, twisting tube that collects urine from the nephrons (cellular structures in the kidney that filter blood and form urine) and moves it into the renal pelvis and ureters.

A surgical procedure in which the colon is attached to the anus after the rectum has been removed.

A surgical procedure in which the colon is attached to the anus after the rectum has been removed.

Contents can spend a day or more here, which is what makes the colon the place where water is reclaimed and bacteria flourish.

Few cancers offer such a long warning: the polyp stage lasts years, and removing one prevents the cancer that would have followed.