Intracorporeal or intracorporal is an adjective that means within (intra-) the body (corpus). [1] Its antonym is extracorporeal.
It is used frequently in medicine to describe medical procedures that occur within the body, or within a corpus, as opposed to extracorporeal procedures (e.g. extracorporeal membrane oxygenation).
In a medical or surgical context, it may refer to:
Kidney stone disease, also known as nephrolithiasis or urolithiasis, is a crystallopathy where a solid piece of material develops in the urinary tract. Kidney stones typically form in the kidney and leave the body in the urine stream. A small stone may pass without causing symptoms. If a stone grows to more than 5 millimeters, it can cause blockage of the ureter, resulting in sharp and severe pain in the lower back or abdomen. A stone may also result in blood in the urine, vomiting, or painful urination. About half of people who have had a kidney stone will have another within ten years.
In vertebrate anatomy, the throat is the front part of the neck, internally positioned in front of the vertebrae. It contains the pharynx and larynx. An important section of it is the epiglottis, separating the esophagus from the trachea (windpipe), preventing food and drinks being inhaled into the lungs. The throat contains various blood vessels, pharyngeal muscles, the nasopharyngeal tonsil, the tonsils, the palatine uvula, the trachea, the esophagus, and the vocal cords. Mammal throats consist of two bones, the hyoid bone and the clavicle. The "throat" is sometimes thought to be synonymous for the fauces.
Corpus delicti, in Western law, is the principle that a crime must be proved to have occurred before a person can be convicted of committing that crime.
Dead on arrival (DOA), also dead in the field and brought in dead (BID), are terms which indicate that a patient was found to be already clinically dead upon the arrival of professional medical assistance, often in the form of first responders such as emergency medical technicians, paramedics, firefighters, or police.
Debridement is the medical removal of dead, damaged, or infected tissue to improve the healing potential of the remaining healthy tissue. Removal may be surgical, mechanical, chemical, autolytic (self-digestion), and by maggot therapy.
Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper. On smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labor-intensive activity of the growing season. On large mechanized farms, harvesting uses the most expensive and sophisticated farm machinery, such as the combine harvester. Process automation has increased the efficiency of both the seeding and harvesting processes. Specialized harvesting equipment utilizing conveyor belts to mimic gentle gripping and mass-transport replaces the manual task of removing each seedling by hand. The term "harvesting" in general usage may include immediate postharvest handling, including cleaning, sorting, packing, and cooling.
Lithotripsy is a non-invasive procedure involving the physical destruction of hardened masses like kidney stones, bezoars or gallstones. The term is derived from the Greek words meaning "breaking stones".
An extracorporeal is a medical procedure which is performed outside the body. Extracorporeal devices are the artificial organs that remain outside the body while treating a patient. Extracorporeal devices are useful in hemodialysis and cardiac surgery.
Scope of practice describes the procedures, actions, and processes that a healthcare practitioner is permitted to undertake in keeping with the terms of their professional license. The scope of practice is limited to that which the law allows for specific education and experience, and specific demonstrated competency. Each jurisdiction has laws, licensing bodies, and regulations that describe requirements for education and training, and define scope of practice.
Lithotomy from Greek for "lithos" (stone) and "tomos" (cut), is a surgical method for removal of calculi, stones formed inside certain organs, such as the urinary tract, bladder, and gallbladder (gallstones), that cannot exit naturally through the urinary system or biliary tract. The procedure is usually performed by means of a surgical incision. Lithotomy differs from lithotripsy, where the stones are crushed either by a minimally invasive probe inserted through the exit canal, or by an acoustic pulse, which is a non-invasive procedure. Because of these less invasive procedures, the use of lithotomy has decreased significantly in the modern era.
A calculus, often called a stone, is a concretion of material, usually mineral salts, that forms in an organ or duct of the body. Formation of calculi is known as lithiasis. Stones can cause a number of medical conditions.
Autotransplantation is the transplantation of organs, tissues, or even particular proteins from one part of the body to another in the same person.
Laser lithotripsy is a surgical procedure to remove stones from urinary tract, i.e., kidney, ureter, bladder, or urethra.
Autoinoculation is derived from the Latin root words "autos" and "inoculate" that mean "self implanting" or "self infection" or "implanting something from oneself". Autoinoculation can refer to both beneficial medical procedures as well as non-beneficial or harmful natural processes. One beneficial autoinoculation medical procedure is when cells are removed from a person's body, medically altered then reinserted into the same organism or person again to achieve some diagnostic or treatment aim. For example, stem cell treatments involve the harvesting of stem cells from one's own bone marrow and reintroduction (autoinoculation) of those cells at a later date, sometimes after altering those stem cells. Autoinoculation may also be used for the transplantation of a patient's own healthy bone marrow after recovering from a condition afflicting the tissue. Autoinoculation can also refer to the process by which viruses reproduce themselves within an organism by implanting themselves in an organism's cells, altering the metabolism, DNA repair, and replication processes of those cells, using those processes to reproduce and transmit itself throughout the organism. For example, warts and Molluscum contagiosum can be spread by this method if wart tissue cells are mechanically transported to another part of the body. This transmission or autoinoculation of the wart can occur by mechanical touching of one part of the organism to another, friction that removes a portion of the infected cells to an external surface and then reintroduces those cells upon contact with the body elsewhere, or when wart cells or tissue are transported though the blood stream of an organism.
A medical procedure is a course of action intended to achieve a result in the delivery of healthcare.
Extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT) is a non-invasive, out-patient alternative to surgery for those with many joint and tendon disorders. ESWT sends acoustic shock waves into bone or soft tissue, in effect reinjuring the area on a cellular level and breaking up the scarring that has penetrated tendons and ligaments. The controlled reinjuring of tissue allows the body to regenerate blood vessels and bone cells. The resulting revascularization leads to faster healing and often a return to pre-injury activity levels. It is a treatment using powerful acoustic pulses which is mostly used to treat kidney stones and in physical therapy and orthopedics.
Abdominal ultrasonography is a form of medical ultrasonography to visualise abdominal anatomical structures. It uses transmission and reflection of ultrasound waves to visualise internal organs through the abdominal wall. For this reason, the procedure is also called a transabdominal ultrasound, in contrast to endoscopic ultrasound, the latter combining ultrasound with endoscopy through visualize internal structures from within hollow organs.
Obstructive uropathy is a structural or functional hindrance of normal urine flow, sometimes leading to renal dysfunction.
A medical procedure is defined as non-invasive when no break in the skin is created and there is no contact with the mucosa, or skin break, or internal body cavity beyond a natural or artificial body orifice. For example, deep palpation and percussion are non-invasive but a rectal examination is invasive. Likewise, examination of the ear-drum or inside the nose or a wound dressing change all fall outside the definition of non-invasive procedure. There are many non-invasive procedures, ranging from simple observation, to specialised forms of surgery, such as radiosurgery. Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy is a non-invasive treatment of stones in the kidney, gallbladder or liver, using an acoustic pulse. For centuries, physicians have employed many simple non-invasive methods based on physical parameters in order to assess body function in health and disease, such as pulse-taking, the auscultation of heart sounds and lung sounds, temperature examination, respiratory examination, peripheral vascular examination, oral examination, abdominal examination, external percussion and palpation, blood pressure measurement, change in body volumes, audiometry, eye examination, and many others.
Nitin Shrivastava is an Indian urologist and academic. Srivastava received training from Maulana Azad Medical College and completed his superspecialisation at AIIMS. Dr Nitin was a fellow at Department of Urology at Oxford University. His work revolves around use of robotics for renal oncology.