Category: C

When coronary arteries, narrowed by disease, cannot supply the heart muscle with sufficient blood, the cardiac circulation may be improved by grafting a section of vein from the leg to bypass the obstruction. Around 10,000 people in the United Kingdom have this operation annually and the results are usually good. It is a major procedure…

A technique of dilating atheromatous obstructions in coronary arteries by inserting a catheter with a balloon on the end into the affected artery. It is passed through the blockage (guided by Xray fluoroscopy) and inflated. The procedure can be carried out through a percutaneous route.  

A corn is a localised thickening of the cuticle or epidermis affecting the foot. The thickening is of a conical shape; the point of the cone is directed inwards and is known as the ‘eye’ of the corn. A general thickening over a wider area is called a callosity. Bunion is a condition found over…

Continued fevers are typhus, typhoid and relapsing fevers, so called because of their continuing over a more or less definite space of time. A fever where the temperature remains within a one or two-degree range over a 24-hour period.  

A charity which helps families with disabled children to obtain good-quality information, support and —most of all — contact with other families with children who have the same disorder. This includes children with specific and rare conditions and those with special educational needs. The charity has many local parent groups throughout the UK and publishes…

A relationship by blood: siblings are closely consanguinous, cousins, and grandparents and grandchildren less so.  

A group of generalised inflammatory diseases that affect connective tissue in almost any system in the body. The term does not include those disorders of genetic origin. Rheumatic fever and rheumatoid arthritis were traditionally classified in this group, as were those diseases classed under the outdated heading collagen diseases.  

The term for describing the persistent and involuntary turning of both eyes in any one direction, and is a sign of a lesion in the brain. Constant turning of the head and eyes to one side, indicative of a neurological condition.  

Also known as ‘expert systems’, these are computer software systems intended to help doctors make clinical decisions. Primary care medicine is especially noted for its uncertainty by virtue of being most patients’ first point of contact with health care, confronting the clinician with many ‘undifferentiated’ health problems. So far, these systems have not been as…

This is part of the body’s defence mechanism that comprises a series of 20 serum PEPTIDES. These are sequentially activated to produce three significant effects: firstly, the release of small peptides which provoke inflammation and attract phagocytes; secondly, the deposition of a substance (component C3b) on the membranes of invading bacteria or viruses, attracting phagocytes…