Medical terms beginning with D

The dermis is the thicker, deeper layer of skin beneath the epidermis, containing blood vessels, nerves, glands, and hair follicles.

A type of benign (not cancer) germ cell tumor (type of tumor that begins in the cells that give rise to sperm or eggs) that often contains several different types of tissue such as hair, muscle, and…

A drug whose harms surfaced a generation later, in the children exposed before birth rather than in the women who were treated.

Because a desmoid tumor tends to grow into nearby structures locally, complete surgical removal can be difficult even though it rarely spreads elsewhere.

Causing or forming adhesions or fibrous connective tissue within a tumor.

A melanoma that breaks its own rules: colorless, scar-like, easily dismissed as harmless, and inclined to creep outward along nerves.

A rare, aggressive cancer that usually affects young males and usually is located in the abdomen.

To render a harmful substance less harmful, which is a genuine chemical process in the liver and also a marketing word.

A developmental stage is a recognizable period of physical, cognitive, emotional, and social change that a child moves through while growing toward adulthood.

A word that sounds like a measurement and is not, because deciding what counts as normal is a judgment the term never states.

What separates a device from a drug is mechanism: it acts physically or mechanically rather than through chemical action inside the body.

The abbreviation is also written DXA, and the two forms name the same low-dose x-ray method for measuring bone mineral density.

Ordered when fracture risk is in question, the test takes minutes, needs no injection, and uses a very small radiation dose.

Molecules come in left and right handed forms, and here only the working half is supplied, which is why the milligram numbers look smaller.

The active ingredient in a drug used to treat severe side effects caused by certain anticancer drugs.

An anticancer drug that is a type of angiogenesis inhibitor.

A substance being studied in the treatment of cancer.

DHEA is a steroid hormone made mainly by the adrenal glands that serves as a building block for testosterone and estrogen.

A childhood condition in which abnormal tissue grows on the outer part of one or both kidneys.

DHT is a potent hormone derived from testosterone that drives male sexual development and contributes to prostate enlargement and pattern hair loss.