A term used for a disease that runs a course between acute and chronic.
The description applied to a disease the duration of which lies between ACUTE and chronic (see CHRONIC DISORDER). An example is subacute ENDOCARDITIS, a disorder that may not be diagnosed for several weeks or months, during which time it can severely damage valves in the heart.
Having characteristics of both acute and chronic. This is the state in a disease when most of the aches and pains have subsided and you are likely to overdo things and not completely recover. The chest cold that lingers for weeks as a stubborn cough is a subacute condition, as is the tendonitis that lingers because you won’t stop playing tennis long enough to completely heal.
adj. describing a disease that progresses more rapidly than a *chronic condition but does not become *acute.
A rare complication of MEASLES due to infection of the brain with the measles virus. It develops 2–18 years after the onset of the measles, and is characterised by mental deterioration leading on to CONVULSIONS, COMA and death. The annual incidence in Britain is about one per million of the childhood population. The risk of its developing is 5–25 times greater after measles than after measles vaccination (see MMR VACCINE; IMMUNISATION).... subacute sclerosing panencephalitis
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