UICC-TNM
The UICC-TNM (UICC referring to Union Internationale Contre le Cancer and TNM referring to tumor, node, metastases) system describes the extent of cancer in a patient’s body by the size of the tumor, lymph nodes involved, and presence of any metastasis.

Unblinded
Patients, clinicians, those monitoring outcomes, judicial assessors of outcomes, data analysts, and manuscript authors are aware of whether patients have been assigned to the experimental or control group.

Understanding Treatment Disclosure (UTD)
A screening instrument for medical decision-making capacity that offers 3 scenarios (schizophrenia, ischemic heart disease, and major depression) to assess a patient's understanding of the disorder and its treatment options.

Unit of analysis error
When investigators use any sort of cluster randomization (randomize by physician instead of patient, practice instead of physician or patient, or village instead of participant) and analyze as if they have randomized according to patient or participant, they have made a unit of analysis error. The appropriate analysis acknowledges the cluster randomization and takes into account the extent to which outcomes differ between clusters independent of treatment effect.

United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS)
Administers the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, collects and manages data on all organ transplantations in the United States, matches organ donors with recipients, and works with public policymakers on transplantation-related policies. For more information, see the following Web site for the organization: http://www.unos.org.

Up-front costs
Costs incurred to "produce" the treatment such as the physician's time, nurse's time, and materials.

US Patient Self-Determination Act
US legislation requiring many hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, hospice organizations, health maintenance organizations, and other health care institutions to provide information about advance care directives to adult patients on their admission to the health care facility.

Utilitarian
A consequentialist or utilitarian view of distributive justice would contend that even in individual decision making, the clinician should take a broad social view in which the action that would provide the greatest good to the greatest number is favored. In this broader view, the effect on others of allocating resources to a particular patient’s care would bear on the decision. An alternative to the deontological view.

Utility
Patient preferences that are measured with techniques consistent with modern utility theory. Patient preferences refer to the degrees of subjective satisfaction, distress, or desirability that patients or potential patients associate with a particular health outcome. Utility theory is based on specific axioms that describe how a rational decision maker ought to make a decision when the outcomes of that decision are uncertain. Commonly used measures of utility include the “standard gamble” or “time trade-off” techniques.

Utility measures
Measures that provide a single number that summarizes all of health-related quality of life (HRQL) and are preference- or value-weighted; these have the references or values anchored to death and full health and are called utility measures. See also Health-related quality of life.

Utilization review
An organized procedure carried out through committees to review admissions, duration of stay, and professional services provided, and to evaluate the necessity of those services and promote their most efficient use.