MEDICAL DICTIONARY
Paraneoplastic syndrome: The collective signs and symptoms caused by a substance emanating from a tumor or in reaction to a tumor. Paraneoplastic syndromes can be due to a number of causes including hormones or other biologically active products made by the tumor, blockade of the effect of a hormone , autoimmunity , immune-complex production, and immune suppression.
For example, a well-known paraneoplastic syndrome involves inappropriate ADH secretion. ADH is antidiuretic hormone. The syndrome disturbs fluid balance, results in the inability to put out dilute urine, and causes nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps , confusion, and convulsions. Inappropriate ADH secretion can occur, for example, with oat-cell lung cancer , pancreatic cancer , prostate cancer , and Hodgkin disease .
A paraneoplastic syndrome is not produced by the primary tumor itself or by its metastases, nor is it caused by compression, infection, nutritional deficiency, or treatment of the tumor.
"Para-" is a prefix with many meanings including resembling, beyond, and apart from. "Neoplastic" means tumoral, pertaining to a tumor. "Paraneoplastic" thus means resembling a tumor, near tumoral, apart from a tumor.
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