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Re: Acronym aggravation persists eight years later

Dear Editor

I wish the current editor of Heart would heed the pledge made eight years ago by his predecessor that "authors and speakers must spell out all acronyms at the first mention".[1] The authors of the above article defined all the abbreviations and acronyms except the most important one - PREVENIR!

The exponential growth of acronyms of cardiologic trials should be resisted.[2] But the resistance has met little success; the number of trial acronyms has exploded from 245 in 1992 [3] to over 3600 in 2002,[4] a 15-fold increase in a decade. Authors and editors should be reminded that few readers are allowed the luxury of reading a whole article in a modern cardiology journal without the frequent and disruptive interruption caused by unexplained acronyms.[5]

Burchell said in 1985: "I shall not be the cavalier accoucheur of an acronym or the uncritical promoter of a new one".[6] If we have to invent a new acronym, let us at least explain it at the first mention.

Tsung O. Cheng, MD
Professor of Medicine
George Washington University
Washington, DC, USA

References

(1) Cheng TO (and Editor's Note). Acronym aggravation. Br Heart J 1994;71:107-109. (2) Cheng TO: Acronymophilia: The exponential growth of the use of acronyms should be resisted. Br Med J1994;309:683-684. (3) Cheng TO. Acronyms of major cardiologic trials. Am J Cardiol 1992;70:1512-1514. (4) Cheng TO, Julian D. Acronyms of cardiologic trials - 2002. Int J Cardiol, in press. (5) Cheng TO. Acronymania, acronymophilia and acronymophobia. Br J Cardiol 1998;5:624-625. (6) Burchell HB. Thoughts on eponyms. Int J Cardiol 1985;8:229-234.