Quote:
Originally Posted by vickij
What is thrombocytopenia?
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Thrombocytopenia is the condition of having lower-than-normal platelets. Thrombocyte is the technical name for a platelet.
Here's why:
The word "thrombocyte" is derived from "thrombos" (blood clot) and cyto (cell), so you add penia (deficiency) to get the word "thrombocytopenia'.
That can help you make sense of other terms you might hear, like "cytopenia" (having an insufficient number of ANY type of blood cell), "leukocytopenia" (not enough white cells, called leukocytes), and "granulocytopenia" (not enough granulocyte cells).
Some of the medical words omit the "cyto", so "leukopenia" and "leukocytopenia" mean the same thing, and "neutropenia" means not enough neutrophils (a very important type of white cell).
If you're low on red cells and white cells and platelets, it's called "pancytopenia", because "pan" means "all".
To spoil the pattern, being low on red cells is called "anemia", not "erythrocytopenia", even though the cells you're missing are called erythrocytes ("erythro" means "red"). Then again, it's easier to remember the word "anemia", isn't it?
Now that you've mastered all of these words, you'll understand the joke if we say that some doctors suffer from "explain-o-penia"!