Insulinoma

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A rare tumor arising in the pancreas that produces excess insulin and causes dangerously low blood sugar
2. A usually benign growth in the islet cells of the pancreas that releases too much insulin into the bloodstream
3. An uncommon pancreatic neoplasm that overproduces the hormone insulin, leading to recurrent episodes of hypoglycemia

Etymology: Insulinoma is a straightforward medical coinage: it joins "insulin", the hormone that lowers blood sugar, to the suffix "-oma", which in medicine denotes a tumour or growth. The suffix comes from Greek "-ōma", a noun ending that names the result of an action or condition, and in modern clinical usage it attaches to the name of a tissue or substance to label a neoplasm arising from it. An insulinoma is therefore a tumour of the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. The name is a product of the twentieth century. Insulin itself was only isolated in 1921 and used therapeutically from 1922, so a term for a tumour that secretes it could not exist before that. Clinicians needed a precise label once such tumours could be identified and linked to the low blood sugar they cause, and they built it from parts already in use.