Understanding Key Medical Terms: Chemotherapy, Palpitation, Percussion

This assignment provides detailed explanations of three key medical terms: chemotherapy, palpitation, and percussion. Chemotherapy is defined as a cancer treatment involving medications that inhibit abnormal cell growth through various mechanisms like disrupting microtubule function, DNA synthesis, and protein function. The assignment distinguishes between adjuvant and neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Palpitation is described as a rapid, strong, or irregular heartbeat, potentially caused by stress, anxiety, or underlying clinical issues like arrhythmia or thyroid problems. Percussion is explained as an assessment technique where a physician taps on the patient's chest wall to produce sounds that indicate the size, borders, and consistency of body organs, as well as the presence of fluids. The document concludes with a list of references used in compiling the information. Desklib offers many resources for students, including past papers and solved assignments.

Running head: MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY
MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

1MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is the treatment that involves medication and combination of medications
for treating cancer, whose mechanism of action prevents the abnormal cell growth by inhibiting
the microtubule function, DNA synthesis and protein function (von Minckwitz et al., 2012). The
cytotoxic chemotherapy can be cell dependant, arresting the growth of the cancer cells at the
specific phases of the cell cycle. There are several therapies that target the pathway such as the
Alkylating agents, Anti-metabolites, Anti-microtubule agents, antitumor antibiotics and
Topoisomerase II inhibitors (von Minckwitz et al., 2012). The chemotherapy given after the
radiation or the surgery is called the adjuvant chemotherapy, it destroys any cancer cells left in
the body after the surgery and the chemotherapy applied before the surgery is known as the neo-
adjuvant therapy. In this therapy the tumor is shrinked for making removing it easily
surgically(von Minckwitz et al., 2012).
Palpitation
Palpitation is the rapid, strong and irregular heartbeat caused due to stress, exercise,
medications, strong emotional responses, anxiety, panic attacks, and hormonal changes. Heart
palpitation can be a sign of clinical problems like hypothyroidism, arrhythmia, tachycardia,
bradycardia and irregular heart rhythm. Palpitation may lead to cardiac arrest, stroke, and heart
failure (Ershadifar et al., 2014).
Percussion
It is an assessment technique that produces sound by the physician tapping on the chest
wall of the patient. Tapping on the wall of the patient's chest can produce sounds based on the
amount of air present in the lungs. It is mainly done for determining the size, borders and the
consistency of the body organs, the absence or the presence of fluid in body areas (Osadnik et al.,
2012).

2MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY
References
Ershadifar, T., Minaiee, B., Gharooni, M., Isfahani, M. M., Nasrabadi, A. N., Nazem, E., ... &
Saleh, D. K. (2014). Heart palpitation from traditional and modern medicine perspectives.
Iranian Red Crescent Medical Journal, 16(2).
Osadnik, C. R., McDonald, C. F., Jones, A. P., & Holland, A. E. (2012). Airway clearance
techniques for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Cochrane Database of Systematic
Reviews, 3.
Scher, H. I., Fizazi, K., Saad, F., Taplin, M. E., Sternberg, C. N., Miller, K., ... & Armstrong, A.
J. (2012). Increased survival with enzalutamide in prostate cancer after chemotherapy.
New England Journal of Medicine, 367(13), 1187-1197.
von Minckwitz, G., Untch, M., Blohmer, J. U., Costa, S. D., Eidtmann, H., Fasching, P. A., ... &
Jackisch, C. (2012). Definition and impact of pathologic complete response on prognosis
after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in various intrinsic breast cancer subtypes. Journal of
clinical oncology, 30(15), 1796-1804.