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Sign (medicine) - Definition and Overview |
| Related Words: Anesthesiology, Audiology, Bacteriology, Balsam, Cardiology, Chiropody, Cure, Dentistry, Dermatology, Drug, Elixir, Embryology, Endocrinology, Epidemiology, Etiology, Firewater, Fluoroscopy |
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In medicine, a sign is a feature of disease as detected by the doctor. It is therefore "objective", as opposed to the patient's experience (symptom), which is (relatively) subjective.
Examples of signs are elevated blood pressure, or abnormal appearance of the retina, or clubbing of the fingernails. These would generally be meaningless to the patient, but can prompt the doctor to look for certain categories of diseases to explain the patient's symptoms.
A number of signs are named after the doctors who first observed them. See list of eponymous medical signs for a larger list.
Some specific signs:
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