| blood pressure, high | High blood pressure (hypertension) is a repeatedly elevated blood pressure exceeding 140 over 90 mmHg. High blood pressure is also called the silent killer. Chronically high blood pressure can cause blood vessel changes in the back of the eye (retina), thickening of the heart muscle, kidney failure, and brain damage. No specific cause for high blood pressure is found in 95% of patients. High blood pressure is treated with salt restriction, regular aerobic exercise, and medications. (12 Dec 1998) |
|---|---|
| blood pressure monitoring, ambulatory | Method in which prolonged blood pressure readings are made while the patient undergoes normal daily activities. It allows quantitative analysis of the high blood pressure load over time, can help distinguish between types of hypertension, and can assess the effectiveness of antihypertensive therapy. (12 Dec 1998) |
| blood pressure monitors | Devices for continuously measuring and displaying the arterial blood pressure. (12 Dec 1998) |
| blood products | Biopharmaceutical products purified from human blood, such as the blood clotting factor VIII used to treat haemophiliacs. (Recombinant factor VIII is also on the market.) The term also refers to biopharmaceuticals that act on blood or the cells that make blood. These products are often produced by the cells themselves, but in such tiny amounts that extracting them from blood is impractical, and so they are genetically engineered. (14 Nov 1997) |
| blood protein electrophoresis | Electrophoresis applied to blood proteins. (12 Dec 1998) |
| blood proteins | The hundreds of different proteins present in blood plasma, including carrier proteins (such as serum albumin, transferrin, and haptoglobins), fibrinogen and other blood coagulation factors, complement components, immunoglobulins, enzyme inhibitors, precursors of substances such as the angiotensins and bradykinin, and many other types of proteins. (12 Dec 1998) |
| blood puzzles | Foreign bodies or deformed blood cells that may be misinterpreted as infectious agents (e.g., bacteria, fungi) in stained films as a result of similarities in morphology and staining properties. (05 Mar 2000) |
| blood relationship | A relationship that share a common bloodline, descent from a common ancestor. (27 Sep 1997) |
| blood relative | A relative of a person sharing some of the sources from which genes are derived. These will include many of the genes that operate in the blood and its constituents but no special importance attaches to the blood as a vehicle of inheritance. Spouses are not ordinarily blood relatives and when they are, the marriage is consanguineous and carries a higher risk than average of progeny homozygous by descent from ancestors in common. Such marriages are discouraged and within certain degrees of kindred may be illegal. Origin: a folk metaphor of breeding (05 Mar 2000) |
| blood-retinal barrier | Specialised nonfenestrated tightly-joined endothelial cells that form a transport barrier for certain substances between the retinal capillaries and the retinal tissue. (12 Dec 1998) |
| blood sedimentation | Measurement of rate of settling of erythrocytes in anticoagulated blood. (12 Dec 1998) |
| blood-shotten | Red and inflamed; suffused with blood, or having the vessels turgid with blood, as when the conjunctiva is inflamed or irritated. "His eyes were bloodshot, . . . And his hair disheveled." (Dickens) Origin: Blood + shot, p. P. Of shoot to variegate. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| blood smear | A sample of blood is applied to a microscope slide and then studied under the microscope. Red blood cell appearance and differential is analysed. Red blood size, shape and colour are commented on. Conditions such as hereditary spherocytosis, haemolytic anaemia, sickle cell anaemia, TTP, DIC, thalassaemia, pernicious anaemia, myelodysplasia, G6PD deficiency and lymphomas. (27 Sep 1997) |
| blood spavin | A distention of the veins in the vicinity of the tarsus in a horse, due to pressure from the swelling of bog spavin impeding the return flow of blood. (05 Mar 2000) |
| blood specimen collection | The taking of a blood sample to determine its character as a whole, to identify levels of its component cells, chemicals, gases, or other constituents, to perform pathological examination, etc. (12 Dec 1998) |