ACRONYMS AND INITIALISM

· In general usage, the term acronym is commonly used to describe all abbreviations made from initial letters, regardless of pronunciation. Initialism originally referred to abbreviations formed from initials, without reference to pronunciation. Many writers and speakers do not observe any difference between acronyms and initialisms.

· Acronyms are abbreviations formed by taking the initial letter of each word from a series of words or phrase. For example: AIDS, Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, MRI from magnetic resonance imaging, CBC from complete blood count.

· All letters of acronyms are always capitalized but the words or phrases from which they are generated are to be capitalized only if they are proper nouns.

For example: MRI from magnetic resonance imaging is not capitalized when spelled out. However, OPEC from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will be capitalized when spelled out because it is a proper noun.

· With widespread usage, most of the commonly used medical acronyms are now used as words in their own sense, meaning that such acronyms have now become the original word and are therefore transcribed as lower cased words and not in abbreviated form.

For example: Laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) Folfox

· Periods are not used in between letters of acronyms.

· Plurals in acronyms are made by adding lower cased 's' to upper cased acronym as in WBCs. In case of lowercased acronyms like rbc, plural is made by adding apostrophe 's' as in rbc’s.

· When using Acronym, apostrophe 's' is used to show possession to that acronym.

For example: By OPEC's criteria, the whole world is their market place.

· Similar to abbreviations, acronyms should not be used in diagnosis, assessments of reports, as well as in the procedure of operation.

· One note of caution: Acronyms whose meanings are either not known or understood should be better left as they are rather than ending in putting your foot on the wrong side.