Nomenclature for parasitic diseases: cohabitation with inconsistency for how long and why?

Abstract

The author surveys the early history of nomenclature for parasitic diseases or infections which led to the existing usage of synonymous names with diverse spellings for denominating the same disease entities. In order to diminish heterogeneity in nomenclatural usage, principles of the standardized nomenclature of parasitic diseases (SNOPAD) have been put forward by the World Association for the Advancement of Veterinary Parasitology. Pros and cons regarding the SNOPAD concept are discussed in seeking consensus terminology. The need for a standard nomenclature may be judged differently. SNOPAD is just a guideline based on carefully reasoned and clearly defined principles for those authors and editors dissatisfied with the existing heterogeneous and inconsistent nomenclatural usage and wish to rely on a uniform and standard disease nomenclature. The major suggestion of SNOPAD is the use solely of suffix - osis when disease name is coined from the name of a parasite taxon. Meanwhile, the proposed principles were found sensible and accepted more in the field of veterinary, less in medical parasitology. In a recent survey it has been revealed that the majority (73.8%) of 126 national language parasitological textbooks or compendia from 21 countries of Europe published since 1990 adopted consistent ‘-osis’ disease terminology and the rest (26.2%) used a mixture of disease names ending in ‘-osis’ and ‘-iasis’ inconsistently. For achieving substantial shift towards the use of more consistent disease terminology, the interest and support of the parasitologists’ community is required. Editorials and database producers hold the key to further progress provided they see the advantages of the use of a single name of worldwide currency for each disease entity.