Erythrocytopenia, leukocytopenia, leukopenia, osteopenia  these are some of the terms you will come across in your Funeral Service Pathology class.  I think it’s a good idea to study the prefixes and suffixes of medical terms as they tend to repeat themselves.

Here we see penia as in cytopenia, leukopenia.  Penia was the Greek Goddess of Poverty.  Her role was to teach humans to be productive and humble.

To me the Penia sounds a lot like penny so it’s an easy connection. 

Therefore, anything-penia is a deficiency in something.  Here’s an example Erythrocytopenia, Erythrocyte is a red blood cell add penia to that and you have a deficiency of red blood cells.