Coccidioidal

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Relating to or caused by a fungal infection characterized by the presence of spores from the genus responsible for valley fever; pertaining to the disease manifestation and its pathological effects
2. Connected with a specific fungal organism that produces respiratory illness through inhaled spores; involving the medical condition associated with these infections acting as a systemic or localized disorder
3. Associated with the fungi that induce pulmonary or disseminated infections marked by granulomas and immune response; concerning the clinical syndrome and diagnostic aspects of this particular mycosis

Etymology: Coccidioidal comes from "Coccidioides," the genus name of the fungus that causes valley fever, and that name is itself a modern scientific coinage. The genus was named in 1892 by the American physician Alejandro Posadas, who had found the organism in a patient's lesion in Argentina. Its first element, "coccidi-," draws on the Greek "kokkos," meaning "berry" or "seed," because the organism was observed as spherical bodies, while the second element, "-oides," means "resembling," so the whole name means "resembling a coccidium." Coccidium was itself a name for a different group of single-celled parasites, which the fungus was thought to resemble. The adjective is formed by adding the English suffix "-al" to that genus name, a pattern used for medical and biological terms. Its literal sense is "relating to Coccidioides," which is why it is applied to infections, symptoms, and the disease itself, and it is most often used in medical writing about fungal illnesses of the southwestern United States and parts of Latin America.