Glossary

an intermediate filament found in cells. It was once thought to found only in mesenchymal cells and as a consequence staining for this element was thought ot be specific for sarcomas dn other mesenchymal cell tumors. This has not proven to be the case and it has been shown to be present in many tumors to a point that it’s routine use is diminishing.

Ventriculo-peritoneal – as in ventricular peritoneal shunt, a hydrocephalic shunt whose distal catheter drains into the peritoneal cavity.

Vital Signs.  Refers to the measurement of basic bodily functions such as heart rate, breathing rate, body temperature, and blood pressure.

World Health Organization

This is the line formed by drawing a line along the dorsal surface of the clivus and extending it inferiorly to the upper cervical canal.  Normally the dens will be ventral to the line or just touch it but with basilar invagination the dens’ tip touches or is above the line.

Characterized by an accessory tragus or ear tag.

Windkessel Effect – The dampening effect of a large arterial vessel’s walls on the pulse pressure excursion due to the elasticity of the walls absorbing some of the pressure of the systolic wave form and transmitting it back during diastole. This helps maintain perfusion of organs during the diastolic phase of the cardiac cycle.

– pathways made up by a group of proteins within the walls of cells that function to pass transduction signals into a cell. These pathways are activated by the binding of a Wnt-protein ligand to a cell wall receptor, which passes the biological signal on to an intracellular protein. Mutations of these pathways lead to a variety of diseases, including cancer.

AKA xenotransplantation: a transplantation of cells, tissues, or organs,from a one organism to another of a different species. An example would be bovine pericardium as a dural substitute in operations on humans.

Radiotherapy – XRT is a common abbreviation used in describing or speaking about radiation therapy used to treat cancers and other tumors.