Antrostomy

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A surgical technique involves making an incision to create an opening into a hollow organ or space to allow access for medical treatment or drainage needs
2. A surgical method that involves forming an opening into a cavity within the body to facilitate therapeutic interventions or enable drainage of fluids
3. A procedure that surgically creates an access point into a body cavity to enable treatment or fluid drainage

Etymology: Antrostomy is a compound built from two Greek-derived elements. The first, "antro-", comes from the Greek "antron", meaning a cave or hollow, and in medicine it refers to the maxillary sinus, the large air-filled cavity inside the cheekbone. The second, "-stomy", comes from the Greek "stoma", meaning mouth or opening, and is the standard suffix for a surgically made opening, as in tracheostomy or colostomy. Put together, the word describes exactly what it names: a surgeon cuts a new opening into the antrum so that it can be treated or drained. Because the term is a transparent technical coinage from classical roots, its history is simple. It belongs to the vocabulary of modern surgery rather than to ancient medicine, since the Greek ancestors of its parts were never combined this way by Greek or Roman physicians.