Usage of the term outside epidemiology Outside  of epidemiology, the usage of the term "latent  " is often confusing because it is widely used by educated speakers for and defined in dictionaries as being the time interval between infection by a pathogen and the onset of symptoms the time or period between exposure to a disease-causing agent or process and the onset of symptoms or disease or for the sometimes long time periodin which a virus or other pathogen is present in a body without causing disease. The  term " latent period" is widely used even in medicine for the period between the onset of a non-infectious disease such as cancer and the onset of symptoms. So doctors and medical journals speak of  latent tumors, for example. Even more confusing is that the term is used even in medicine when talking about infectious diseases in referring to asymptomatic periods of, for example, syphilis that include both infectious and non infectious phases .
Usage of the term outside epidemiology Outside the confines of epidemiology, the term "latent period " may be defined in some general-purpose dictionaries (e.g. the Collins English Dictionary or Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary) as being the time interval between infection by a pathogen and the onset of symptoms , i.e., as a synonymous term for the epidemiologically different concept of "incubation period". In the discussion of cancers (a non-infectious disease), the term " latency period" is used to indicate the time that passes between being exposed to something that can cause disease (such as radiation or a virus) and having symptoms. Doctors and medical journals may speak of "latent" tumors, which are present but not active or causing symptoms. In the discussion of syphilis (a sexually transmitted infectious disease), the term " latent " refers to asymptomatic periods with different degrees infectiousness .
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