Ostomy medical terms explained

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Stoma Basics

Hear from Marie our Clinical Advisor

From A Bigger Life

There may be occasions when you’ve been talking to one of your healthcare professionals and perhaps have struggled with some of the medical words or terminology that’s being used.
 
In this blog post we’ll explain the meaning behind some of these medical terms.
 
We’ll start in alphabetical order.
 
Abdomen: The area of the body between the chest and the hips, the front part of your body where the stoma is brought out by your surgeon.
 
Adjuvant therapy: This is a type of therapy that assists another therapy. Adjuvant therapy can be given either before or after your operation for the treatment of bowel cancer, for example, with chemotherapy.
 
Anastomosis: The surgical join of two cut ends of bowel and anastomosis may be either hand sewn or joined by the use of surgical staples.
 
Benign: This means noncancerous or non-malignant.
 
Chemical irritant dermatitis: This is the inflammation of the peristomal skin, which is the skin around the stoma due to direct toxic reaction from perhaps faecal or urinary leakage or perhaps ostomy deodorants or solvents.
 
Flush stoma: Where the stoma, the lining of the stoma is at a level with the skin, either the entire way around or just partially. And the stoma maybe flush perhaps because of surgical technique difficulty. So in some cases, the surgeons have difficulty trying to mobilise or pull the bowel up to the surface or perhaps due to weight gain.
 
Granulomas: Used to describe small reddish raised areas or nodules on the edge of the stoma or on the actual skin and just beside the stoma, commonly caused by local irritation from perhaps the stoma appliance or suture sites, and sometimes due to chronic leakage of effluent.
 
Maceration: When the paracetamol skin becomes excoriated and moist.
 
Pancaking: When stool sits around the top of the stoma appliance instead of actually falling down into your pouch.
 
Polyps: These are small growths in the bowel that vary and shape and size, and these polyps are usually benign or non-malignant, but can undergo malignant changes over a very long period of time. And polyps in the bowel are much more common after middle age.
 
In the next video, we will focus on the definition of words used to describe your ostomy equipment.
 

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