Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Apr 20:10:34-38.
doi: 10.1016/j.xjon.2022.04.010. eCollection 2022 Jun.

Toward standard abbreviations and acronyms for use in articles on aortic disease

Zachary G Perez  1 , Mohammad A Zafar  1 , Bulat A Ziganshin  1   2 , John A Elefteriades  1
Affiliations

Toward standard abbreviations and acronyms for use in articles on aortic disease

Zachary G Perez et al. JTCVS Open. .

Abstract

Objectives: Academic medical literature is fraught with complex article-specific acronyms and abbreviations that can impair communication and make reading arduous. Our goal is to ease frustration with bespoke, inconsistent, and variable sets of abbreviations that currently exist for common aorta-related terminology (eg, anatomy, imaging, disease, and therapy). We hope to ease reading and improve communication in the aortic sphere of cardiovascular literature.

Methods: We reviewed a total of 205 published references related to aortic disease, including a systematic review of aorta-related articles in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery from the years 2020 and 2021. The array of variable definitions, abbreviations, and acronyms encountered in different papers that refer to the same terminology was striking, revealing that there were few standardized abbreviations in the aortic literature. We cataloged these terms, their associated abbreviations, and their frequency of use, and compiled a list of proposed standard abbreviations for commonly used terms that could be implemented uniformly in articles written about aortic diseases.

Results: We present suggested acronyms and abbreviations for common terminology related to the aorta. It is anticipated that this standard list will evolve over time as the literature and technology of the field grows and develops.

Conclusions: A proposed standard set of acronyms and abbreviations for aorta-related terminology is provided that, if found useful, could be implemented broadly in the aortic literature.

Keywords: abbreviations; acronyms; aneurysm; aorta; aortic aneurysm.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
None
A word soup of abbreviations related to the aorta currently used in the literature.
Figure 1
Figure 1
The development and potential influence of a standardized set of abbreviations for aortic terminology. Please see all aorta-related articles in volumes 159 through 162 of The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and for the remaining articles reviewed for this study.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Begg C.B. Zero tolerance for acronyms. Clin Trials. 2017;14:561–562. - PubMed
    1. Cheng T.O. Acronymania. J Fam Pract. 1995;40:328. - PubMed
    1. Albornoz G., Coady M.A., Roberts M., Davies R.R., Tranquilli M., Rizzo J.A., et al. Familial thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections--incidence, modes of inheritance, and phenotypic patterns. Ann Thorac Surg. 2006;82:1400–1405. - PubMed
    1. Bhandari R., Aatre R.D., Kanthi Y. Diagnostic approach and management of genetic aortopathies. Vasc Med. 2020;25:63–77. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Boczar K.E., Cheung K., Boodhwani M., Beauchesne L., Dennie C., Nagpal S., et al. Sex differences in thoracic aortic aneurysm growth. Hypertension. 2019;73:190–196. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources