Specific-pathogen free


A term that is applied to animals reared for use in laboratory experiments which indicates that the animals are known to be free of germs that can cause disease. Abbreviated SPF.

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  • Specificity

    1. The quality of being specific as, for example, she showed the use of specificity in her diagnosis. 2. The proportion of persons without a disease who are correctly identified by a test. The specificity is the number of true negative results divided by the sum of the numbers of true negative plus false positive […]

  • Speckled iris

    Due to little white (or lightly colored) spots that are slightly elevated on the surface of the iris. These spots, arranged in a ring concentric with the pupil, occur in normal children but are far more frequent in Down’s syndrome (trisomy 21). They were described in 1924 by Thomas Brushfield, are called Brushfield’s spots, and […]

  • SPECT

    An acronym that stands for Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, a nuclear medicine procedure in which a gamma camera rotates around the patient and takes pictures from many angles, which a computer then uses to form a tomographic (cross-sectional) image. The calculation process in SPECT is similar to that in CT (X-ray computed tomography) and […]

  • SPECT scan

    Single photon emission computed tomography scan, a nuclear medicine procedure in which a gamma camera rotates around the patient to produce images from many angles, which a computer then uses to form a tomographic (cross-‘sectional) image.

  • Spectral karyotype (SKY)

    A visualization of all of the chromosomes in the genome all together with each chromosome labeled with a different color. The SKY technique is useful for identifying chromosome abnormalities.


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