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Medical Dictionary Terms Beginning with R
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Radium
Radium: The celebrated radioactive element discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898.more detail info...
Radius
Radius: In anatomy, the radius is the smaller of the the two bones on the thumb's side of the forearm. (The bigger one is the ulna). The word radius comes unchanged from the Latin meaning a spoke in a wheel which this bone was thought to resemble. Themore detail info...
Radon
Radon: A radioactive element formed as a gas during the breakdown of radium.more detail info...
RaederÆs syndrome
RaederÆs syndrome: A distinctive syndrome of headaches, also known as cluster headache or migrainous neuralgia. The common pattern of cluster headache is termed ôepisodicö and is characterized by 1-3 short attacks of pain each day around the eyesmore detail info...
Ragweed
Ragweed: Any of a number of weedy composite herbs that produce a pollen that is a frequent cause of allergies. Of all allergy sufferers in the United States, 75% are allergic to ragweed.more detail info...
Rale
Rale: A type of abnormal lung sound heard through a stethescope. Rales may be sibilant (whistling), dry (crackling) or wet (more sloshy) depending on the amount and density of fluid refluxing back and forth in the air passages. The word rale is a straimore detail info...
Ramsey Hunt syndrome
Ramsey Hunt syndrome: A herpes virus infection of the geniculate nerve ganglion, the Ramsey Hunt syndrome causes paralysis of the facial muscles on the same side of the face as the infection. It is usually associated with a rash (vesicles or tinmore detail info...
Ramus
Ramus: A standard medical dictionary contains over 13 pages full of entries to the word ramus. Why? Because ramus in Latin means a branch and all sorts of anatomic items such as blood vessels and nerves quite naturally have branches. So, for example, mmore detail info...
Ramus of the mandible
Ramus of the mandible: The mandible (the lower jaw bone) is shaped like a horseshoe. The back parts of the horseshoe that stick up are the two ramuses, or more properly, the rami of the mandible.more detail info...
Random
Random: The process by which an outcome is determined solely by chance, for example, by a coin flip.more detail info...
Random mating
Random mating: Totally haphazard mating with no regard to the genetic makeup (genotype) of the mate so that any sperm has an equal chance of fertilizing any egg. This rarely, if ever, occurs but the concept is impoortant in population genetics. Also camore detail info...
Random sample
Random sample: A group selected randomly, solely by chance.more detail info...
Range
Range: In medicine (and statistics), the range is the difference between the lowest and highest numerical values. For example, if premature infants are born weighing 2, 3, 4, 4, and 5 pounds, the range of their birth weights is 2-5 pounds.more detail info...
Range of motion
Range of motion: The range through which a joint can be moved, usually its range of flexion and extension. Due to an injury, the knee may for example lack 10 degrees of full extension.more detail info...
Range, normal
Range, normal: Normal results can fall outside the normal range. By convention, the normal range is set to cover ninety-five percent (95%) of values from a normal population. Five percent (5%) of normal results therefore fall outside the normal range.more detail info...
Rash
Rash: Breaking out (eruption) of the skin. Medically, a rash is referred to as an exanthem.more detail info...
Rash, butterfly
Rash, butterfly: A red, flat facial rash over the bridge of the nose. Over half of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) develop this characteristic rash. Because of its shape, it is frequently referred to as the "butterfly rash" of lupus.more detail info...
RAST
RAST: An allergy test done on a sample of blood. The aim with RAST, as with skin tests, is to check for allergic sensitivity to specific substances. RAST stands for RadioAllergoSorbent Test.more detail info...
Rate, basal metabolic
Rate, basal metabolic: A measure of the rate of metabolism. For example, someone with an overly active thyroid will have an elevated basal metabolic rate.more detail info...
Rate, birth
Rate, birth: The birth rate is usually given as the number of live births divided by the average population (or the population at midyear). This is termed the crude birth rate. In 1995, for example, the crude birth rate per 1,000 population was 14 in tmore detail info...