Understanding Medical Terminology – Suffixes
Last week we talked about prefixes, descriptors attached to the beginning of medical terms. Today we’re going to talk about understanding medical suffixes, attached to the end of medical terminology to add clarity and further description. There’s a lot to go through, so I’ve organised some of the most important ones into groups. We’ll cover symptoms and surgical ones today.
Symptom Suffixes
A lot of suffixes are related to symptoms experienced by a patient, or clinical signs. In veterinary medicine we tend not to use the term ‘symptom’ as it means the reported experience of the patient. Our patients can’t tell us how they feel, even the parrots that can talk don’t know how to describe their physical sensations!
-itis
This suffix means inflammation and is Greek in origin. It’s one people often get confused and assume it means infection. Infections usually do cause inflammation, but other things can cause it as well. So ‘tonsilitis’ means inflammation of the tonsils. ‘Cystitis’ means inflammation of the bladder – it is often used interchangably with UTI (urinary tract infection) but cystitis can be caused by other factors. UTIs cause cystitis, but not all incidences of cysititis are UTIs. This is especially true in cats, where antibiotics are usually not required for cystitis.
-lepsy
Another Greek one, unsurprisingly, this suffix means attack or seizure. So it’s used to describe episodic conditions that have sudden ‘attacks’. You can already think of a couple, like epilepsy where the patient has sudden onset seizures. Or narcolepsy, where people suddenly fall asleep.
-lysis
From Greek, this means destruction or separation and is used for a number of medical terms. Paralysis means loss of motor function and is a neurological symptom. Haemolysis (hemolysis in US English) describes a condition where the blood cells are destroyed inside the body. The result is haemolytic anaemia. Anaemia means there’s not enough red blood cells. Make sense?
-rrhage
This comes from Greek for ‘to break or burst’ and means to burst forth or erupt with rapid flow. So ‘haemorrhage’ means bleeding. Or hemorrhage in US English.
-stasis
This means stopping or standing still. Tying it to the previous suffix, if you have haemorrhage you need to induce haemostasis, to stop the bleeding. Haem- or hem- is the prefix related to blood, and changing the suffixes changes the meaning. Using the right suffix could save lives!
-rrhoea or -rrhea
Similar to -rrhage discussed above, this term means flow or discharge. I know, that’s a word that feels uncomfortable for some. The obvious use of this is in ‘diarrhoea’ or ‘diarrhea’, where faeces flows freely.
-stenosis
This term describes an abnormal narrowing of a tubular structure to restrict flow – commonly in blood vessels but can also be related to other tubular organs like the digestive tract. Aortic stenosis describes narrowing of the aorta, the largest artery in the body. So quite an important one! Pyloric stenosis describes narrowing of the exit of the stomach into the small intestine. Stenosis works as a stand-alone word too.
Surgical Suffixes
There are lots of suffixes used in relation to surgery and procedures carried out by medical professionals. They indicate a lot about what the procedure entails, so let’s go through a few important ones.
-centesis
This is a procedure where an organ is punctured to aspirate the contents. Aspirate is a fancy way of saying that you suck out some of the contents in a syringe. It is done with a needle, and sometimes ultrasound is used to guide the procedure. A common example is ‘amniocentesis’ where a sample of the amniotic fluid around a foetus is taken for testing, looking for genetic abnormalities and things like that.
It can be therapeutic too – pericardiocentesis is a big word and it means using a needle to aspirate fluid from the pericardium. The pericardium is a tough tissue capsule around the heart, and if it fills up with fluid it puts pressure on the heart and leads to heart failure. Doing pericardiocentesis can relieve this pressure until the underlying cause can be found and treated.
-ectomy, -tomy, -plasty and -pexy
These suffixes are used to describe different types of surgery. So appendectomy means removing the appendix, -ectomy means to remove. Thoracotomy means incising into the thorax (chest) so -tomy means to incise or cut into.
The suffix -plasty comes from the Greek word meaning to mould or form and describes surgery to reconstruct or repair. A rhinoplasty is a procedure to reshape the nose, for example and this is where the term ‘plastic surgery’ comes from. So it’s not always about adding actual plastic to the body.
Finally, -pexy means to fix in place. So a procedure that holds an organ in place. Anyone who’s owned a giant breed dog will be aware of this one. Large deep chested dogs like Great Danes are prone to a condtion where the stomach twists around on itself and becomes swollen. This can kill a dog within hours and is a true surgical emergency. Some people choose to do a gastropexy along with neutering. The vet stitches the stomach to the chest wall so it cannot twist. This pre-emptive surgery is termed ‘prophylactic’ because it’s a preventative.
Conclusion
Using medical terminology allows for more concise notes, avoiding a need for long-winded explanations. You could say this: “My dog got its stomach stitched to it’s chest wall while it was having routine neutering surgery so that it doesn’t end up getting a GDV in the future.”
Or you could say this: “My dog got prophylactic gastropexy at neutering.” It’s the same thing, but much more concise. This is partly why medical professionals use this terminology – it saves space and time in clinical notes, referral letters and research papers.
Of course, we have a responsibility to make sure our patients or clients know what we mean, so doctors may not use these terms when explaining things to you. At least they shouldn’t, or at least explain what they mean. Or check you understand what it means. If you’re unsure, please ask for clarification though.
I hope you found this helpful and interesting. If you want to learn more or have any questions, my inbox is always open. I’ll be producing a video explaining this with visual aids so if that’s more your style, you can find the video here. Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to subscribe!
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