Medical terms - Letter S (page 7) | MedicalVocabulary.org

Sensitivity, analytic

See: Analytic sensitivity
Sensorineural deafness with XX gonadal dysgenesis

See: Perrault syndrome.
Sensorium

The totality of those parts of the brain that receive, process and interpret sensory stimuli. The sensorium is the supposed seat of sensation, the place to which impressions from the external world are conveyed and…
Sensory

Relating to sensation, to the perception of a stimulus and the voyage made by incoming (afferent) nerve impulses from the sense organs to the nerve centers. 'Sensory' also is sometimes used to refer to the senses…
Sensory integration

A form of occupational therapy in which special exercises are used to strengthen the patient's sense of touch (tactile), sense of balance (vestibular), and sense of where the body and its parts are in space…
Sensory neuron

A neuron that receives electrical input signals from sensory cells and from other neurons
Sentinel lymph node

The first lymph node ('gland') to receive lymphatic drainage from a tumor. Which lymph node is the sentinel node in a given case is determined by injecting around the tumor a tracer substance that will travel through…
Sentinel lymph node biopsy

Sentinel lymph node biopsy: Examination of the first lymph node ('gland') that receives lymphatic drainage from a tumor to determine whether that node does or does not have tumor cells within it. Which lymph node is the…
Sentinel node biopsy

See: Sentinel lymph node biopsy
Sentinel-lymph-node biopsy

See: Sentinel lymph node biopsy
Separation anxiety

Separation anxiety: A developmental stage during which a child experiences anxiety when separated from the primary care giver (usually the mother). Separation anxiety is normal between 8 months of age and may last until…
Separation anxiety disorder

Excessive anxiety concerning separation from home or from those to whom a child is attached. The child may develop excessive worrying to the point of being reluctant or refusing to go to school, being alone, or sleeping…
Sepsis

Commonly called a 'blood stream infection.' The presence of bacteria (bacteremia) or other infectious organisms or their toxins in the blood (septicemia) or in other tissue of the body. Sepsis may be associated with…
Sepsis, neonatal

A serious blood bacterial infection in an infant less than 4 weeks of age. Babies with sepsis may be listless, overly sleepy, floppy, weak, and very pale
Septal defect, atrial (ASD)

A hole in the septum, the wall, between the atria, the upper chambers of the heart. Commonly called an ASD. ASDs are a major class of heart deformity that is present at birth (congenital cardiac malformation)
Septal defect, ventricular (VSD)

A hole in the septum (the wall) between the lower chambers of the heart (the ventricles). Ventricular Septal Defect is the most common type of heart malformation (congenital heart disease). At least 1 baby in every 500…
Septate

Ided: A septate uterus is a one that is divided
Septate vagina

A vagina that is divided, usually longitudinally, to create a double vagina. This situation can be easily missed by the patient and even by the doctor on exam. If the patient becomes sexually active prior to diagnosis…
Septic

Infected, or denoting infection. For example, septic shock is shock caused by infection.
Septic arthritis

Arthritis:
Septic bursitis

A bursa is a closed fluid-filled sac that functions as a gliding surface to reduce friction between tissues of the body. When the bursa becomes inflamed, the condition is known as 'bursitis.' When the bursa is infected…
Septicemia

Systemic (bodywide) illness with toxicity due to invasion of the bloodstream by virulent bacteria coming from a local seat of infection. The symptoms of chills, fever and exhaustion are caused by the bacteria and…
Septorhinoplasty

A surgical procedure done on the nose and the nasal septum, the wall within the nose separating the left and right sides. A procedure on the nose called a rhinoplasty is usually done to enhance the appearance of the…
Septuagenarian

Someone in his or her seventies. See also: Age by decade
Septum

A word borrowed from the Latin 'saeptum' meaning a 'dividing wall or enclosure.
Septum, atrial

The wall between the two upper chambers (the right and left atrium) of the heart
Septum, cardiac

The cardiac septum is the dividing wall between the right and left sides of the heart. That portion of the septum that separates the two upper chambers (the right and left atria) of the heart is termed the atrial (or…
Septum, heart

The septum of the heart is the dividing wall between the right and left sides of the heart. That portion of the septum that separates the two upper chambers (the right and left atria) of the heart is termed the atrial…
Septum, interatrial

The wall separating the upper chambers (the atria) of the heart. A hole in the interatrial septum is termed an atrial septal defect (ASD)
Septum, interventricular

The wall separating the lower chambers (the ventricles) of the heart. A hole in the interventricular septum is termed a ventricular septal defect (VSD)
Septum, nasal

The dividing wall within the nose. The nasal septum runs down the middle of the nose creating two sides to the nose, each containing a passageway that ends in a nare (nostril). The nasal septum is not as simple a…
Septum, ventricular

The wall between the two lower chambers (the right and left ventricles) of the heart
Sequela

A pathological condition resulting from a prior disease, injury, or attack. As for example, a sequela of polio. Verbatim from the Latin 'sequela' (meaning sequel). Plural: sequelae
Sequelae

See: Sequela
Sequence tagged site (STS)

A short (200 to 500 base pair) DNA sequence that occurs but once in the genome and whose location and base sequence are known. STSs are detectable by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), are useful for localizing and…
Sequence, complementary

Nucleic acid sequence of bases that can form a double- stranded structure by matching base pairs. For example, the complementary sequence to C-A-T-G (where each letter stands for one of the bases in DNA) is G-T-A-C
Sequence, conserved

A base sequence in a DNA molecule (or an amino acid sequence in a protein) that has remained essentially unchanged throughout evolution
Sequence, draft DNA

Sequence of a DNA with less accuracy than a finished sequence. In a draft sequence, some segments are missing or are in the wrong order or are oriented incorrectly. A draft sequence is as opposed to a finished DNA…
Sequence, finished DNA

A DNA sequence in which the bases are identified to an accuracy of no more than 1 error in 10,000 and are placed in the right order and orientation along a chromosome with almost no gaps. A finished sequence is as…
Sequence, intervening

An intervening sequence is the part of a gene that is initially transcribed from the DNA into RNA (specifically, into the primary RNA transcript) but then is excised (removed) from it when the so-called exxon sequences…
Sequence, Klippel-Feil

See: Klippel-Feil sequence
Sequence, regulatory

A sequence of bases in DNA that controls gene expression
Sequencing

Learning the order of nucleotides (base sequences) in a DNA or RNA molecule or the order of amino acids in a protein. In the case of DNA sequencing, the precise ordering of the bases (A,T,G,C) from which the DNA is…
Sequester

1. In medicine, to set apart, detach or separate a small portion of tissue from the rest. 2. In bone, for a piece of dead bone to separate from the sound bone. 3. In biochemistry, to isolate a constituent of a system by…
Ser

Serine. See also: Amino acid symbols
Serendipity

An accidental and fortunate discovery. Not all good medical research by any means is done by design. Some is by serendipity, pure good luck. A celebrated instance of serendipity in biomedical research took place in 1928…
Serial amnioreduction

The repeated removal of large volumes of amniotic fluid by amniocentesis. The rationale for serial amnioreduction is to prevent preterm delivery related to polyhydramnios (too much amniotic fluid) and to improve fetal…
Serial transverse enteroplasty

Abbreviated STEP. A surgical procedure designed to treat the short bowel syndrome. STEP is based on the idea that stapling V-shapes into alternating sides of the bowel will decrease its width and increase its length. A…
Serine

An amino acid, one of the 20 building blocks of protein. A dietary nonessential amino acid, serine is present in many proteins participates in the synthesis of purines and pyrimidines, and is in the active sites of many…
SERM

Selective Estrogen-Receptor Modulator