Medical Dictionary Definitions A-Z List
Medical Dictionary Definitions A - Z - «K»:
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Kiddiecam
Kiddiecam: See: Kiddie cam....
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Kidney
Kidney: One of a pair of organs located in the right
and left side of the abdomen which clear "poisons" from the blood, regulate acid
concentration and maintain water balance in the body by excreting urine.
The kidneys are part of the urinary tract. The urine then
passes through connectin...
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Kidney cancer
Kidney cancer: Malignancy of the kidney, the organ that is primarily responsible for the removal of metabolic waste products from the body.
The types of kidney cancer in adults and children are different and distinct:
Adults -- Kidney cancer tends to occur after age 50 and strikes men twice as ofte...
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Kidney Dis, Nat'l Inst of Diabetes and Digestive
Kidney Diseases, National
Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and (NIDDK): One
of the National Institutes of Health in the U.S., the NIDDK has a multisystem name and a comparably broad
mission, namely, to "conduct and support basic and applied research and provide
leadership for a national prog...
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Kidney disease screening
Kidney disease screening: Screening (looking) for early kidney disease in people who are not already known to have it. Kidney disease is common and is commonly insidious in onset. The burden of kidney disease in its earlier stages lies not only in the risk of progression but in the complications of ...
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Kidney infection in children
Kidney infection in children: See: Urinary tract infection in children....
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Kidney scoping
Kidney scoping: Formally known as retrograde intrarenal surgery (RIRS), this is a procedure for doing surgery within the kidney using a viewing tube called a fiberoptic scope (an endoscope).
In RIRS the scope is placed through the urethra (the urinary opening) into the bladder and then through the ...
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Kidney stone
Kidney stone: A stone in the
kidney (or lower down in the urinary tract).
Kidney stones are a common cause of blood in the urine and pain in
the abdomen, flank, or groin. Kidney stones occur in 1 in 20 people
at some time in their life.
The development of the stones is related to decreased
u...
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Kidney stones, cystine
Kidney stones, cystine: Cystine kidney stones are due to cystinuria, an inherited (genetic) disorder of the transport of an amino acid (a building block of protein) called cystine. The result is an excess of cystine in the urine (cystinuria) and the formation of cystine stones.
Cystinuria is the mos...
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Kidney transplant
Kidney transplant: Replacement of a diseased, damaged, or missing kidney with a donor kidney. Also called a renal transplant.
Patients with end-stage renal failure are candidates for
transplantation. A successful transplant frees the patient from dialysis and
provides the kidney's other metaboli...
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Kikuchi disease
Kikuchi disease: A disorder that typically causes "swollen glands" in the neck (cervical lymphadenopathy) together with fever or flu-like symptoms. Laboratory test abnormalities include elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and white blood count abnormalities (low neutrophil count and elev...
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Kilobase
Kilobase: Unit of length of DNA equal to 1000 nucleotide bases....
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Kilocalorie
Kilocalorie: The term used to represent the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of a liter of water one degree centigrade at sea level. In nutrition terms, the word calorie is commonly used to refer to a unit of food energy. (The word calorie is used instead of the more precise scient...
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Kimmelstiel-Wilson disease
Kimmelstiel-Wilson disease: Diabetic nephropathy
(kidney disease).
Kimmelstiel-Wilson disease is a kidney condition associated
with
long-standing diabetes. It affects the network of tiny
blood vessels (the
microvasculature) in the glomerulus, a key structure in the
kidney that is
composed of cap...
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Kimmelstiel-Wilson syndrome
Kimmelstiel-Wilson syndrome: Diabetic nephropathy
(kidney disease).
Kimmelstiel-Wilson syndrome is a kidney condition
associated with
long-standing diabetes. It affects the network of tiny
blood vessels (the
microvasculature) in the glomerulus, a key structure in the
kidney that is
composed of c...