Medical terms beginning with E

Environmental tobacco smoke combines smoke exhaled by smokers with smoke released directly from burning tobacco, inhaled involuntarily by others nearby.

A substance being studied in the treatment of certain types of cancer, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, breast, colon, lung, ovarian, and prostate.

An enzyme is a specialized protein that speeds up a specific chemical reaction in the body without being consumed or permanently changed by it.

This laboratory test, commonly abbreviated ELISA, uses enzyme-linked antibodies bound to a solid surface to detect and measure a specific substance in a fluid sample.

Its weapons cut both ways: the granule proteins that damage parasites also injure airway and skin tissue in allergic disease.

A number on a blood report rather than something a person feels, and its size shapes how far the search for a cause goes.

A thin membrane that lines the fluid-filled spaces in the brain and spinal cord.

A cell that forms the lining of the fluid-filled spaces in the brain and spinal cord.

A type of brain tumor that begins in cells lining the spinal cord central canal (fluid-filled space down the center) or the ventricles (fluid-filled spaces of the brain).

A tumor growing from the lining of the brain's fluid spaces, able to shed cells into that fluid and settle further down.

A shrub native to China and India.

Outbreak investigation, risk factor studies and the evaluation of public health measures all sit with this population level specialist.

Counting cases, comparing exposed and unexposed groups, and testing whether an intervention changes the numbers are the core tasks of the discipline.

A layer with no blood supply of its own, rebuilt continuously from below and shed from above roughly once a month.

Cancer that begins in squamous cells (thin, flat cells that look like fish scales).

A group of chronic skin disorders in which fluid-filled blisters form on the skin and mucosa (the moist, inner lining of some organs and body cavities).

The epididymis is a tightly coiled tube behind each testicle where sperm cells complete maturation and are stored before ejaculation.

A catheter left sitting in the space outside the cord is what lets the block be topped up, adjusted or deepened.

An injection of an anesthetic drug into the space between the wall of the spinal canal and the covering of the spinal cord.

Not one disease but a shared endpoint with dozens of causes, from a birth injury to a scar, a gene or a tumor.