Category: Pp-Pr

The proportion of individuals in a population having a disease or characteristic. Prevalence is a statistical concept referring to the number of cases of a disease that are present in a particular population at a given time, whereas incidence refers to the number of new cases that develop in a given period of time.

An uncommon type of hives (urticaria) that occurs after the skin has been under pressure, often the feet after standing or the buttocks after sitting for a long time or areas where clothing is tight. The hives may begin hours after the pressure on the skin has ceased. The hives last 8 to 72 hours…

Causing a rise in blood pressure. A pressor base is a substance (chemically classified as a base) capable of raising the blood pressure. A pressor nerve is a nerve that, when stimulated, increases the blood pressure. A pressor reflex is a nerve reflex that constricts arterioles (small blood vessels) and thereby increases the blood pressure. A pressor…

A drug requiring a prescription, as opposed to an over-the-counter drug, which can be purchased without one.

A physician’s order for the preparation and administration of a drug or device for a patient. A prescription has several parts. They include the superscription or heading with the symbol “R” or “Rx”, which stands for the word recipe (meaning, in Latin, to take); the inscription, which contains the names and quantities of the ingredients;…

The fold of skin that covers the head of the penis. Also known as the foreskin. Only about 1 in every 20 boys is born with a retractable foreskin. This reflects the fact that the histologic (tissue) development of the foreskin is usually not complete at birth. The foreskin is thus not fully separable from the glans…

Before puberty, the period during which secondary sex characteristics start to develop and the capability for sexual reproduction is attained.

Care given before surgery when physical and psychological preparations are made for the operation, according to the individual needs of the patient. The preoperative period runs from the time the patient is admitted to the hospital or surgicenter to the time that the surgery begins.

Short for preoperative; before a surgical operation. The opposite of preop is postop.

The process of growth and development within the womb, in which a single-cell zygote (the cell formed by the combination of a sperm and an egg) becomes an embryo, a fetus, and then a baby. The first two weeks of development are concerned with simple cell multiplication. This tiny mass of cells then adheres to the inside wall of the uterus.…