Human health and medicine

Dialysis

Dialysis is a medical procedure that removes waste products and excess water from the blood when the kidneys fail, mainly by hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis.

Diamond–Blackfan anemia (DBA, DBA syndrome) is a rare inherited ribosomopathy causing infantile macrocytic anemia, malformations, and cancer predisposition, mostly from ribosomal protein gene mutations like RPS19; treated with steroids, transfusions, and HSCT.

Oct 20, 2026

Diamthazole

Diamthazole (dimazole, Asterol), CAS 95-27-2, is a benzothiazole topical antifungal introduced in 1951 for tinea, withdrawn in France in 1972 and by the US FDA in 1977 over neurotoxic reactions.

Diana D. Cardenas

Diana D. Cardenas is an American physiatrist and spinal cord injury researcher who chaired rehabilitation medicine at the University of Miami and joined the Institute of Medicine in 2004.

Diane Rowland

Diane Rowland is an American health policy scholar who led the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured for 25 years and chaired MACPAC from 2009 to 2015.

Diane Santa Maria

Diane Santa Maria is an American nurse-scientist and public health researcher who serves as dean of Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston, studying HIV and substance use prevention among homeless youth.

Dianetics

Dianetics, also called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, is L. Ron Hubbard's 1950 mind-and-self-help system of engrams, the reactive mind, and auditing, discredited by medicine yet the foundation of Scientology.

Dianhydrogalactitol

Dianhydrogalactitol (VAL-083, DAG, NSC 132313) is a bifunctional epoxide alkylating agent forming N7-guanine DNA cross-links independent of MGMT; approved in China for CML and lung cancer, in US trials for glioblastoma.

Dianicline

Dianicline (SSR591813), a Sanofi-Aventis cytisine-derived α4β2 nicotinic receptor partial agonist for smoking cessation; failed phase 3 (Tonstad 2011, 602 smokers) and development was terminated in February 2008.

Oct 20, 2026

Dianzani autoimmune lymphoproliferative disease

Dianzani autoimmune lymphoproliferative disease (DALD) is a very rare inherited immune disorder causing autoimmunity and enlarged lymph nodes or spleen, without the double-negative T cells of ALPS.

Diaphanospondylodysostosis

Diaphanospondylodysostosis (DSD, ORPHA:66637, OMIM 608022) is an extremely rare autosomal recessive BMPER-related skeletal dysplasia with vertebral and rib ossification defects, small thorax, renal cysts, and usually perinatal lethality.

Diaphragm pacing

Diaphragm pacing is a technique that electrically stimulates the phrenic nerve or diaphragm muscle to generate breaths, used mainly in high spinal cord injury and central hypoventilation.

Diaphragmatic breathing

Diaphragmatic breathing is a behavioral relaxation technique in which a person deliberately engages the diaphragm to slow breathing to 6–10 breaths per minute, producing abdominal breaths that lower stress and blood pressure.

Diaphragmatic hernia

Diaphragmatic hernia (DD50.0): protrusion of abdominal organs into the chest through a diaphragm defect; congenital (Bochdalek, Morgagni, hiatal) or acquired from trauma, with neonatal respiratory distress and surgical repair.

Diaphragmatic hernia repair

Diaphragmatic hernia repair is surgery that returns abdominal organs displaced into the chest to the abdomen and closes the diaphragm, most often in newborns with congenital diaphragmatic hernia.

Diaphyseal medullary stenosis-bone malignancy syndrome

Diaphyseal medullary stenosis-bone malignancy syndrome, also called Hardcastle syndrome or DMS-MFH (OMIM 112250), is a very rare autosomal dominant bone dysplasia and tumor predisposition syndrome caused by MTAP mutations at 9p21, causing pathological fractures, bone infarction, and bone sarcoma in about 35% of affected individuals.

Diarrhea

Diarrhea, also diarrhoea: passage of 3+ loose stools daily, from osmotic, secretory, inflammatory, or motility mechanisms. Treated with reduced-osmolarity ORS (245 mOsm/l) and zinc; still kills ~444,000 children under 5 yearly.

Diastasis of muscle

Diastasis of muscle, or myodiastasis, ICD-11 FB32.0: pathological separation of muscle fibers from fibers, tendons, or fascia. Most common form is diastasis recti abdominis, defined as linea alba widening over 2 cm.

Diastasis recti

Diastasis recti (diastasis recti abdominis, rectus diastasis) is a widening of the linea alba over 2 cm separating the rectus abdominis muscles, common in pregnancy; treated with exercise or fascial plication surgery.

Diastema

Diastema (tooth gap) is a space between adjacent teeth, most often the upper central incisors (midline diastema). Causes include genetics, oversized frenum, habits, and gum disease; treatments include bonding, veneers, braces, and frenectomy.

Diastole

Diastole: the relaxation and filling phase of the cardiac cycle, opposite systole. Covers its four phases, diastolic blood pressure, diastolic dysfunction grading, and the 2025 ASE echocardiography guidelines.

Diastolic function

Diastolic function is the left ventricle's ability to relax and fill with blood during diastole, assessed mainly by echocardiography and central to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

Diastrophic dysplasia

Diastrophic dysplasia (DTD, diastrophic dwarfism) is a rare autosomal recessive skeletal dysplasia caused by SLC26A2 mutations, marked by short stature, joint contractures, hitchhiker thumbs, and cleft palate; most survive to adulthood.

Diathermy

Diathermy, or deep heating, is a therapy using shortwave, microwave, or ultrasound energy to heat tissue below the skin for pain and muscle conditions, and a surgical technique (electrosurgery) for cutting tissue and coagulating blood.

Oct 15, 2026

Diatrizoate

Diatrizoate, also called diatrizoic acid or amidotrizoic acid, is a high-osmolality iodinated X-ray contrast medium, developed in 1953 and used in gastrointestinal studies, angiography, and urography.

Diazepam

Diazepam (Valium) is a long-acting benzodiazepine introduced by Hoffmann-La Roche in 1963 for anxiety, alcohol withdrawal, muscle spasm, and status epilepticus; half-life 24-48 h with active metabolite 50-120 h.

Dibenzepin

Dibenzepin (Noveril, Wander), a tricyclic antidepressant, ATC N06AA08, formula C18H21N3O, introduced 1965; 480–720 mg daily; low antimuscarinic potency; distinct from other drugs named Noveril.

Oct 20, 2026

Dibotermin alfa

Dibotermin alfa (rhBMP-2), marketed as InductOs and Infuse, is a recombinant CHO-cell-derived bone morphogenetic protein-2 implant for lumbar spinal fusion and acute tibial fractures; EU-authorized 2002, suspended 2015 over sponge manufacturing.

Dibunic acid

Dibunic acid, also called 2,6-di-tert-butylnaphthalene-1-sulfonic acid, is the parent acid of sodium dibunate (CAS 14992-59-7, L-1633, Becantex), a non-opioid antitussive, ATC R05DB16, for non-productive cough.