Kidney and Urinary System Terms
The kidneys, bladder, urinary tract, urine, and related conditions. Browse definitions and meanings below.
What is nephrology, and how does it differ from urology?
Both deal with the kidneys and urinary tract, and the split confuses almost everyone. A nephrologist is a physician who treats kidney function medically: filtration failure, blood pressure, mineral balance, dialysis. A urologist is a surgeon who treats the plumbing: stones, obstruction, the prostate, the bladder, and cancers along that path.
The vocabulary follows the same divide. Words built on the Greek nephros tend to belong to the medical side, and words built on the Latin ren or on uro- to the structural side, which is why one organ can be described by two apparently unrelated sets of terms.
Terms in this topic
Alphabetical order-
AAP most often abbreviates alanine aminopeptidase, a kidney tubular enzyme measured in urine, though the identical letters separately denote a well known pediatric professional organization.
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A drug used to treat bladder cancer that does not respond to BCG (Bacillus Calmette Guerin).
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Cancer starting in the adrenal glands is rare, while cancer found in them is not, because they attract spread from elsewhere.
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The outer rind of the gland sitting on each kidney, built in three layers that turn cholesterol into three different classes of hormone.
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The inner part of the adrenal gland (a small organ on top of each kidney).
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Removal of one or both of the small glands capping the kidneys, whose hormones are potent enough that losing both changes life permanently.
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A rare cancer that forms in the outer layer of tissue of the adrenal gland (a small organ on top of each kidney that makes steroid hormones, adrenaline, and noradrenaline to control heart rate…
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A rare cancer of the adrenal gland's outer layer that often announces itself through the hormones it releases unchecked.
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An enzyme that is normally found in healthy kidneys.
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A drug class that occupies the receptors adrenaline uses to squeeze blood vessels and the muscle at the bladder outlet.
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Named for the receptor it occupies, this drug group loosens smooth muscle so vessels widen and urine flows more easily.
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Amanita phalloides is a highly toxic fungus responsible for most fatal mushroom poisonings, with symptoms that can appear deceptively delayed after ingestion.
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A harmless-sounding kidney growth of fat, muscle and tangled vessels whose real danger is not spread but sudden heavy bleeding.
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Surgery to remove the urethra, lower part of the ureters, uterus, cervix, vagina, and bladder.
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A disease in which malignant (cancer) cells are found in the part of the urethra (the tube through which urine leaves the body) that is closest to the outside of the body.
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A set of compounds promoted for decades as a cancer treatment, still without approval or an independent trial showing benefit.
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An aggressive cancer of the central nervous system, kidney, or liver that occurs in very young children.
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An aggressive cancer of the central nervous system, kidney, or liver that occurs in very young children.
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An aggressive cancer of the central nervous system, kidney, or liver that occurs in very young children.
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A drug used to treat advanced kidney cancer and a type of liver cancer that cannot be removed by surgery.