prognostic
Indicating future course
Prognostic relates to prediction, especially of disease outcomes.
A prognostic indicator helps doctors forecast how an illness will develop: Blood pressure is a key prognostic factor for stroke.
The noun prognostic means a sign or omen of future events, though this usage is now uncommon outside medical contexts.
The word shares territory with predictive and prophetic but carries a clinical weight they lack.
Prophetic indicator
- portentSign of future calamity
- harbingerOne who foreshadows
- auguryOmen interpretation practice
- presageIndicate beforehand
auspice · prophecy · oracle · divination · forewarning · premonition · foreshadowing · soothsaying
Forecast of coming events
- projectionSomething that extends outward
- outlookAttitude toward the future
- trendDirection of change
- estimationApproximate value judgment
extrapolation · modeling · scenario · trajectory · conjecture · hypothesis · anticipation · foresight
omen
Prophetic indicator
presage · auspice · prophecy · oracle · divination · forewarning · premonition · foreshadowing · soothsaying · clairvoyance
prediction
Forecast of coming events
- projectionSomething that extends outward
- outlookAttitude toward the future
- trendDirection of change
estimation · extrapolation · modeling · scenario · trajectory · conjecture · hypothesis · anticipation · foresight
biomarker
Measurable biological health signal
recurrence · remission · metastasis · tumor · staging · grading · response · therapy · morbidity · progression
marker
Something that signals location
variable · criterion · measure · index · predictor · determinant · correlate · parameter · metric
prognosticretrospective
Reviewing what came before
backward-looking · historical · hindsight · ex post facto · archival
prognosticate, prognostication, prognosticator, prognosticating, prognostications, prognosticators, prognosticated, prognosticates