BPA Medical Office Procedures Complete Practice Test 2025

The suffix that is primarily used to describe a state of health or illness is -ia. This suffix is commonly found in medical terminology where it denotes a condition or a state. For example, the term "insomnia" refers to a state of sleeplessness, and "anemia" describes a state of having insufficient red blood cells. It is versatile and can be used to indicate various health-related conditions.

In contrast, the other suffixes serve more specific purposes. The suffix -itis is typically used to indicate inflammation, such as in "arthritis," which refers to the inflammation of the joints. The suffix -oma refers to tumors or neoplasms, as seen in "carcinoma," which is a type of cancerous tumor. Lastly, the suffix -sis generally describes a process, condition, or action, as in "lesion," which refers to an abnormal change in body structure, but does not specifically denote a state of health or illness in the broader sense that -ia does.