Reproductive, Pregnancy and Breast Health Terms
Reproductive organs, fertility, pregnancy, sexual health, and breast health. Browse definitions and meanings below.
What is obstetrics, and how does it differ from gynecology?
Obstetrics is the care of pregnancy, birth and the period that follows. Gynecology is the care of the female reproductive system outside pregnancy. The two are usually practiced together and abbreviated to OB-GYN, but they answer different questions and their vocabularies only partly overlap.
Obstetric terms are heavily numerical, because so much of the work is measured against a timeline: gestational age in weeks, trimesters, and shorthand for how many pregnancies and births a person has had. Gynecologic and breast terms describe structure, cycle and change instead.
Terms in this topic
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A staging system for prostate cancer that uses ABCD.
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A drug used to treat breast cancer that has spread or that has come back within 6 months after chemotherapy.
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A prostate cancer tablet that shuts down testosterone production everywhere in the body, not only in the testicles.
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Abraxane is a brand name chemotherapy drug that delivers paclitaxel bound to albumin nanoparticles to treat several types of cancer.
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A substance being studied in the treatment of breast cancers caused by mutations (changes) in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.
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The same two letters name a shoulder joint, a ventilator mode and a dosing instruction, so the surrounding note decides which AC is meant.
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An abbreviation for a chemotherapy combination used with other types of therapy to treat breast cancer, including breast cancer that has spread or come back.
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AC-T is a sequential chemotherapy regimen for breast cancer that pairs two drugs given together followed by a third drug given afterward.
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An abbreviation for a chemotherapy combination used to treat breast cancer.
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An abbreviation for a chemotherapy combination used to treat breast cancer.
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A substance being studied in the prevention of breast cancer in women at high risk of breast cancer.
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Inflammation of the prostate gland that begins suddenly and gets worse quickly.
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A finding rather than a diagnosis: something occupying the space beside the womb, which could be any of a dozen things.
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A substance being studied in the treatment of breast cancers caused by mutations (changes) in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.
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A term that has been used to describe abnormal cells that come from glands in the walls of the cervix (the lower, narrow end of the uterus).
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A drug that is used to treat multiple myeloma and ovarian epithelial cancer and is being studied in the treatment of other types of cancer.
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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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Alprostadil, also known as prostaglandin E1, is used to treat erectile dysfunction and to keep a critical fetal blood vessel open in newborns.
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A rare type of ovarian tumor in which the tumor cells secrete a male sex hormone.