Human health and medicine

COSMIC study

COSMIC study: Dutch randomized trial (COPD and Seretide: a Multi-Center Intervention and Characterization, Thorax 2005) of fluticasone withdrawal in 373 COPD patients; also the Karolinska COSMIC omics cohort, NCT02627872.

Cost Control

Cost control (cost containment): the containment, regulation, or restraint of costs, chiefly in health care. Key policies include cost sharing, managed care, reference pricing, generic substitution, and budgeting.

Cost of Illness

Cost of illness (COI), also called burden of disease or economic burden of disease, is a health economics measure of the total monetary cost of a disease: direct medical and nonmedical costs, indirect productivity losses, and intangible costs, studied from defined perspectives.

Cost Savings

Cost savings: reductions in all or any portion of the costs of providing goods or services (MeSH D017046), accruing to provider or consumer; in healthcare, documented through bundled payment, ACO, and prevention programs.

Cost-consequence analysis

Cost-consequence analysis is a type of economic evaluation in healthcare that presents costs and outcomes of interventions in a disaggregated list rather than a single ratio.

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) is an economic evaluation method that compares an intervention's costs with its health outcomes, such as life years gained or QALYs, judging it against alternatives.

Cost-effectiveness model

A cost-effectiveness model is a decision-analytic model that compares the costs and health outcomes of alternative healthcare interventions, expressing results as an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, often dollars per QALY gained.

Cost-utility analysis

Cost-utility analysis (CUA) is an economic evaluation comparing the costs of health interventions with outcomes in quality-adjusted life years, reported as cost per QALY and used for reimbursement decisions.

Costello syndrome

Costello syndrome (faciocutaneoskeletal syndrome, FCS syndrome) is a rare RASopathy caused by activating germline HRAS mutations, with failure to thrive, coarse facies, heart disease, intellectual disability, and about 15% lifetime cancer risk, the highest among RASopathies.

Costochondritis

Costochondritis, also called costosternal syndrome, is inflammation of the rib cartilage joints to the sternum causing chest wall pain without swelling. Affects adults 40-50, diagnosed clinically, treated with NSAIDs and heat, self-limited.

Costovertebral angle tenderness

Costovertebral angle tenderness (CVAT, Giordano's sign) is flank pain elicited by percussion between the 12th rib and lumbar spine over the kidney; a physical sign of pyelonephritis and renal colic, first described by Murphy in 1884.

COSYCONET study

COSYCONET (COPD and SYstemic consequences-COmorbidities NETwork) is a German multicenter COPD cohort of 2741 patients recruited 2010–2013 at 31 centers, studying comorbidities, systemic inflammation, and mortality predictors.

Cotesting

Cotesting is a cervical cancer screening strategy combining HPV testing and the Pap test on the same specimen, recommended every 5 years for women aged 30 to 65.

Cotinine

Cotinine is the predominant metabolite of nicotine, formed by CYP2A6 in the liver, with a 12-16 hour half-life. It is the standard biomarker of tobacco and secondhand smoke exposure measured in blood, saliva, and urine.

Cotton wool spots

Cotton wool spots (CWS) are fluffy yellow-white retinal lesions of accumulated axoplasmic debris in the nerve fiber layer, signaling ischemia from diabetes, hypertension, HIV, vein occlusion, or emboli; usually resolving in 6-12 weeks.

Couching (ophthalmology)

Couching is an ancient, now obsolete cataract operation in which a needle dislodges the clouded lens from the visual axis, leaving it inside the eye; it persists in parts of West Africa and Asia.

Cough

Cough: a protective airway-clearing reflex triggered by receptors in the throat, larynx, and bronchi. Acute cough lasts under 2-3 weeks; chronic cough over 8 weeks. Causes, nerve pathways, and treatment evidence.

Cough detection

Cough detection is the automated identification of cough events in audio or sensor recordings, turning cough into an objective count; systems like the Leicester Cough Monitor and VitaloJAK support 24-hour monitoring.

Cough variant asthma

Cough variant asthma (CVA) is an asthma subset with cough as the sole or main symptom, without wheeze or dyspnea. It causes 25-42% of chronic cough, features bronchial hyper-responsiveness and eosinophilic inflammation, and progresses to classic asthma in 30-40% of untreated adults.

Counterconditioning

Counterconditioning is a behavior therapy procedure that replaces an unwanted conditioned response to a stimulus with a new, incompatible response, such as relaxation or reward.

Counterimmunoelectrophoresis

Counterimmunoelectrophoresis (CIE), also called counter-current immunoelectrophoresis, is a serological technique in which an electric field drives antigen and antibody together in a gel, forming a visible precipitin line.

Counterpulsation

Counterpulsation is a form of mechanical circulatory support that inflates a balloon or leg cuffs during diastole to raise coronary perfusion and reduce left ventricular work.

County Hospitals

County hospitals are hospitals owned and operated by county governments, historically the US care providers of last resort for indigent patients; key facts cover governance, safety-net funding, quality, and closures.

Coup contrecoup injury

Coup contrecoup injury: paired focal brain contusions at and opposite the site of a head blow, caused by brain-skull contact during rapid acceleration or deceleration; mechanisms include pressure gradients, cavitation, and rotation, distinguishing it from diffuse axonal injury.

Courvoisier's law

Courvoisier's law, or Courvoisier sign, holds that a palpable nontender gallbladder with jaundice suggests non-stone biliary obstruction, usually malignancy. Described by Ludwig Courvoisier in 1890; 83–90% specific, 26–55% sensitive.

Couvade syndrome

Couvade syndrome, also called sympathetic pregnancy, causes expectant fathers to experience pregnancy-like symptoms such as weight gain and nausea, which typically cease after the child's birth.

Oct 22, 2026

Covalent fragment screening

Covalent fragment screening is a drug discovery method that tests small electrophilic molecules for reactions with cysteine residues in proteins to find starting points for covalent drugs.

Covaxin

Covaxin (BBV152) is India's first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine, a whole-virion inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine by Bharat Biotech with ICMR, showing 78% efficacy and WHO Emergency Use Listing in November 2021.

Cover test

The cover test is a clinical eye examination that detects ocular misalignment (strabismus) by alternately covering each eye and watching the uncovered eye, distinguishing manifest tropia from latent phoria.