Medical terms A–Z

A colon polyp is an abnormal growth on the inner lining of the colon that is usually benign but occasionally becomes cancerous.

A thin, tube-like instrument used to examine the inside of the colon.

The only bowel test that both finds a polyp and removes it, which is why it prevents cancer rather than merely detecting it.

A substance that stimulates the production of blood cells.

Colorectal describes anything relating to the colon and rectum together, the final segments of the large intestine, most often in the context of cancer.

Because a polyp usually takes years to turn malignant, this is one of the few cancers screening can prevent rather than merely find early.

An opening into the colon from the outside of the body.

The instrument never touches the patient, which surprises people expecting something closer to an internal camera.

Examination of the vagina and cervix using a lighted magnifying instrument called a colposcope.

A state of unrousable unresponsiveness that resembles sleep from the outside and works nothing like it within.

Treatment using more than one anticancer drug.

The reason it is gastroenterology but gastritis: a linking vowel appears only when the next part starts with a consonant.

A substance being studied in the treatment of cancer.

A type of ductal carcinoma in situ (very early-stage breast cancer).

Comfort care focuses on relieving symptoms and improving quality of life, most often used to describe care provided near the end of life.

The common bile duct is the tube through which bile travels from the liver and gallbladder into the small intestine.

One short segment of the plumbing that drains bile, defined entirely by the two junctions at either end of it.

A community advisory board links a local community to clinical trial researchers, offering input on trial design, conduct, and how findings are communicated back.

Comorbidity describes the presence of one or more additional conditions occurring alongside a primary disease in the same person.

The comparison of the structure (anatomy) of one animal or plant with the structure of a different animal or plant.

A way to provide an investigational therapy to a patient who is not eligible to receive that therapy in a clinical trial, but who has a serious or life-threatening illness for which other treatments…

One of a group of about 20 proteins that is found in the blood and is important in fighting infections and other diseases.

Forms of treatment that are used in addition to (complementary) or instead of (alternative) standard treatments.

Practices often used to enhance or complement standard treatments.

Surgery to remove the entire uterus, including the cervix.

Surgery to remove all metastases (tumors formed from cells that have spread from the primary tumor).

The disappearance of all signs of cancer in response to treatment.

The best result a scan can show, and a statement about the limits of measurement as much as about the cancer.

Treatment to reduce lymphedema (swelling caused by a buildup of lymph fluid in tissue).

The word places all responsibility on one side of a two-sided relationship, which is precisely why it fell out of favor.

An added medical problem arising during an illness or after treatment, a complication may or may not relate to the original disease or procedure.

A rare form of lymphoma (cancer that begins in cells of the immune system) in which different types of lymphoma cells occur at the same time.

A compound is a substance formed when two or more elements bond chemically in a fixed ratio, producing distinct new properties.

A type of mole formed by groups of nevus cells found in the epidermis and dermis (the two main layers of tissue that make up the skin).

Pressure exerted against a body structure, whether from an external wrap, an internal growth, or a deliberate diagnostic technique, is called compression.

A bandage designed to provide pressure to a particular area.

A type of break in a bone caused by pressure and in which the bone collapses.

Elastic worn to move fluid rather than to squeeze a limb thinner, with the pressure deliberately highest furthest from the heart.

A machine used to keep blood and lymph flowing by pushing air through bands or sleeves that are placed on the arms or legs.

An uncontrollable urge to say or do something without an obvious reason.

A method to examine the inside of the colon by taking a series of x-rays.

A scan that builds a walk-through view of the large bowel from x-ray slices, avoiding the camera but not the preparation.

A plain x-ray flattens the body into one picture, while slicing it apart separates structures that would otherwise be stacked on top of each other.

A series of detailed pictures of areas inside the body taken from different angles.

The scanner captures no picture at all; it records absorption from thousands of angles, and the image is calculated afterward.

Conception marks the biological beginning of pregnancy, occurring when a sperm cell fertilizes an egg to form a single new cell.

A flag for something running alongside the matter at hand, most often another illness or another drug.

A treatment that is given at the same time as another.

A problem of brain function rather than brain structure, which is why the scan comes back normal and the person does not.

Condition is a broad medical term for any recognizable health state, whether a brief illness, a lasting disease, or a physical trait of its own.

A situation in which one signal, or stimulus, is given just before another signal.

Soft warty growths on genital or anal skin, caused by types of a common virus that rarely lead to cancer.

Surgery to remove a cone-shaped piece of tissue from the cervix and cervical canal.

How fast it came on carries more diagnostic weight than how severe it looks, since speed separates a reversible cause from a lasting one.

A condition or trait present at birth.

A type of kidney tumor that is usually found before birth by ultrasound or within the first 3 months of life.

An inherited disorder in which there is a lower-than-normal number of neutrophils (a type of white blood cell that is important in fighting infections).

The word failure misleads, since the heart keeps beating; what fails is the match between its output and what the body needs.

Removal of a cone of cervix that doubles as test and treatment, taking the abnormal area and the diagnosis away in one piece.

A membrane that lines the inner surface of the eyelid and also covers the front part of the eye.

Conjunctivitis, or pinkeye, inflames the membrane covering the white of the eye and inner eyelids, producing redness that can stem from infection, allergy, or irritation.

A substance made by the pancreas.

Supporting tissue that surrounds other tissues and organs.

A clinical study that includes all eligible patients identified by the researchers during the study registration period.

A program of the National Institutes of Health to bring together an independent group of experts to review scientific evidence related to an important public health issue.

Treatment that is given after cancer has disappeared following the initial therapy.

Straining and hard stool define it more than frequency does, because the normal range between healthy people is remarkably wide.

Contiguous structures or areas of tissue are directly touching or immediately adjacent, without any gap or intervening structure between them.

Lymphoma in which the lymph nodes containing cancer are next to each other.

A pouch formed from a piece of small intestine to hold urine after the bladder has been removed.

Paying people, in vouchers or prizes, for verified evidence of a target behavior, and among the best supported approaches in addiction care.

A procedure that bathes the abdominal cavity in fluid that contains anticancer drugs.

The administration of a fluid into a blood vessel, usually over a prolonged period of time.

Health services arranged as one connected path rather than a series of disconnected visits and handovers.

An outside company paid to run parts of a clinical trial, while legal responsibility for the study stays with whoever commissioned it.

The mirror image of an indication: a specific reason in this particular person for not doing what would otherwise be the right thing.

Contralateral describes a structure, finding, or effect located on the side of the body opposite to the one being discussed.

A series of x-ray pictures of the esophagus taken after a patient drinks a liquid containing barium sulfate (a form of the silver-white metallic element barium).

A dye or other substance that helps show abnormal areas inside the body.

The untreated half of an animal experiment, and the only reason a change in the treated half can be credited to anything.

In a clinical trial, the group that does not receive the new treatment being studied.

An experiment or clinical trial that includes a comparison (control) group.

A system in which medical doctors and other healthcare professionals (such as nurses, pharmacists, and therapists) treat symptoms and diseases using drugs, radiation, or surgery.

A currently accepted and widely used treatment for a certain type of disease, based on the results of past research.

A currently accepted and widely used treatment for a certain type of disease, based on the results of past research.

A test that finds antibodies clinging invisibly to red cells, by adding a second antibody that clumps them into something visible.

Two overlapping processes sit under one abbreviation: inflamed, narrowed airways and air sacs whose walls have broken down.

Cope describes the process of managing the emotional, physical, or practical demands created by illness, stress, or a difficult situation.

The learned habits a person falls back on under pressure, some of which reduce the strain and some of which postpone it.

A molecule made up of two or more different kinds of small molecules called monomers.

Four initials from an older era of lymphoma treatment, built by swapping out the harshest drug in the regimen that came before.

A nutrient that the body needs in small amounts to function and stay healthy.

An operation on the vocal cords or on the spinal cord.

Among the most effective rhythm drugs available and among the most toxic, because it lodges in the tissues for months.

The removal of a tissue sample with a wide needle for examination under a microscope.

The removal of a tissue sample with a wide needle for examination under a microscope.

A beta blocker that also relaxes blood vessels, used to steady a failing heart rather than simply to slow the pulse.

Clarity is bought at a price: with no blood supply the tissue stays transparent, but it must take oxygen from tears and air.

Surgery in which a healthy blood vessel taken from another part of the body is used to make a new path for blood around a blocked artery leading to the heart.

Narrowing causes symptoms during exertion, but it is a plaque that suddenly ruptures which causes most heart attacks.