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I have read some news that some patient who suffered from some kind of cancer have to undergo some surgery. Usually, the doctor would remove the infected organ from the patient's body.

Is it correct if I replaced the word in sentence 1, remove with amputate this way (sentence 2)?

  1. The patient's infected organ was removed.
  2. The patient's infected organ was amputated.
3
  • 1
    In colloquial speech, we say things like "She had her gallbladder out."
    – TimR
    Mar 5, 2016 at 17:18
  • 2
    The medical term is the suffix -ectomy, but you can only use that with the medical name for the organ, e,g, "The patient had a mastectomy", "hysterectomy", etc.
    – alephzero
    Mar 5, 2016 at 18:51
  • 2
    Sometimes people will use "amputate" figuratively, to mean "remove with unusual violence," in situations other than medicine. This is not a standard usage, so be aware that if you see it written somewhere, the word is being used poetically and not literally.
    – Crashworks
    Mar 6, 2016 at 5:31

1 Answer 1

14

To amputate refers to extremities and limbs, not internal organs. So I would say the second sentence is incorrect. Instead of amputate you could use removed, that would work just fine and would sound better in my opinion.

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  • 2
    More so than usually, I would say it always does. Mar 6, 2016 at 1:04

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