Synonyms

Synonyms, located below references when in edit mode, are used in a number of scenarios. 

What is a synonym?

A synonym is essentially a 'redirect' to an article. This enables links created to article A to pass to article B, provided article B has an added synonym "article A". 

Having extensive synonyms, not only increases the ease of link creation, but also reduces the risk of duplicate articles being written.

Alternative spellings / plurals 

Many terms have a number of spellings, most often differing between UK and US English.

• hemorrhage and hemorrhage

• tumor and tumor

Similarly plurals aid in easy link creation

• meningioma and meningiomas

Some terms have alternate spellings which are still in common usage but we have made a conscious editorial decision to not use them on Radiopaedia but which should still be added to synonyms

• sulphur: sulfur is now preferred, and any derivatives

• foetus: fetus is now preferred, and any derivatives

Incorrect spellings / plurals

Some medical terms are commonly incorrectly spelled or pluralised, and for these cases it is helpful to include the incorrect spelling in the synonyms to ensure that searches for these incorrectly-spelled search strings still result in the correct article for the end user.

• use of the suffixes -paenia and paenic, e.g. lymphopaenia, thrombocytopaenia, leucopaenic

• incorrect plurals e.g. epididymi, epididymises (correct is epididymides)

Rearranged longer titles

Some titles are long and can be rearranged.

• TCC of the bladder

• Bladder TCC

• Transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder

• Bladder transitional cell carcinoma

Initialisms and acronyms

Synonyms are also a good place to include known abbreviations for a topic. In the vast majority of cases, it makes sense to include a term in brackets that helps qualify the abbreviation as many abbreviations have more than one usage, and doing so avoids ambiguity and confusion for the end-user.

For example, COPD (lung)

More specific future articles

In some instances you may have written a general article for a condition that will eventually require multiple articles. This is most often the case with systemic disease. In such cases it is useful to add as synonyms what you think future articles will be. This way appropriate links can be created.

For example an initial article on sarcoidosis may be given the additional synonyms:

• pulmonary manifestations of sarcoidosis

• gastrointestinal manifestations of sarcoidosis

• neurosarcoidosis

"Include in Listings?" Option

To the right of the entry field for synonyms or alternate spellings is a check box captioned "Include in Listings?"

This denotes whether this term will appear in the "Encyclopedia" ("Browse by topic or system") section of the site. In general, include only listings that are going to appear in different parts of the list, rather than side by side.

Delete a synonym

To delete a synonym, simply click the red "-" to the far right of that synonym.