Meaning & use
nephrectomy
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountablemedical
A surgical operation in which a kidney, or a section of one, is removed from the body.
Grammar: Plural form is nephrectomies: she had one nephrectomy, but some patients need two.
Patterns
- a nephrectomy for something
- undergo a nephrectomy
- a nephrectomy on someone
The surgeon recommended a nephrectomy because the tumor had spread through most of the kidney.
After her nephrectomy, she was told to avoid heavy lifting for six weeks.
A living donor must be healthy enough to survive a nephrectomy and manage with one kidney.
Word forms
| plural | nephrectomies |
|---|
Common combinations
- partial nephrectomy
- A partial nephrectomy lets doctors take out the tumor while keeping healthy kidney tissue.
- radical nephrectomy
- He underwent a radical nephrectomy after the scans showed a large mass.
- perform a nephrectomy
- The team performed the nephrectomy through several small cuts rather than one large incision.
- donor nephrectomy
- A donor nephrectomy is usually done a few hours before the transplant.
- laparoscopic nephrectomy
- Recovery is often quicker after a laparoscopic nephrectomy than after open surgery.
Synonyms and how they differ
- kidney removal
- This is the plain-English way to say the same thing and is better in conversation, whereas nephrectomy is the precise term used in medical records and papers.
Word family
- nephrologist noun
- a doctor who treats kidney disease
- nephritis noun
- inflammation of the kidneys
- nephron noun
- the tiny filtering unit inside a kidney
- nephric adjective
- relating to the kidney
Commonly confused: nephrectomy or nephrostomy?
nephrectomy vs nephrostomy
A nephrostomy is a small tube placed into the kidney to drain urine; nothing is removed, unlike in a nephrectomy.
Practice
Which operation is a nephrectomy?
Choose one answer.
The ending -ectomy means cutting out, and nephr- refers to the kidney. Draining a kidney with a tube is a nephrostomy, which is the tempting wrong option.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “nephrectomy”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.