verb
- to undergo or cause to undergo caseation; to convert into a cheese-like substance, especially in pathology when tissue dies and becomes a crumbly, necrotic mass
Usage: medical/pathology term; often used in the context of tuberculosis and other infections
Examples
- In tuberculosis, infected lung tissue can caseate, forming characteristic lesions.
- The pathologist observed that the granuloma had begun to caseate.
- When bacteria invade tissue, the immune response may cause the area to caseate and die.
- Caseating necrosis is a hallmark of mycobacterial infections.