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(Chest. 2004;126:1000-1001.)
© 2004 American College of Chest Physicians

What Is a MOSAIC Study?

Tsung O. Cheng, MD, FCCP

George Washington University Medical Center, Washington, DC

Correspondence to: Tsung O. Cheng, MD, FCCP, George Washington University Medical Center, Washington, DC 20037.

To the Editor:

I read and reread the recent article on the MOSAIC study1 in an attempt to find out what the acronym MOSAIC stands for. Finally I gave up, because I could not find its definition anywhere.

Readers of medical journals, especially physicians outside a specific specialty, are almost always frustrated and deeply aggravated by unexplained acronyms.2 New acronyms, many of which are catching, are being created everyday from clinical trials to capture both the spirit of the trials and the attention of those reading the eventual publication of the results.3 Despite your instruction that "Each abbreviation should be expanded at first mention in the text and noted parenthetically after expansion,"4 this rule was not followed in this paper. Although the authors provided an alphabetical list of the abbreviations used in the paper, followed by their full definitions, MOSAIC was not among them.

I wish you would take a poll of your readers to find out how many of them know what MOSAIC stood for. I would not be surprised at all that very few, if any, know. So I wish to make a plea here: Must not fOrget to Spell out each Acronym In order to avoid Confusion (MOSAIC)!

References

  1. Wilson, R, Allegra, L, Huchon, G, et al (2004) Short-term and long-term outcomes of moxifloxacin compared to standard antibiotic treatment in acute exacerbations of chronic bronchitis. Chest 125,953-964[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  2. Cheng, TO Acronym aggravation. Br Heart J 1994;71,107-109[Free Full Text]
  3. Cheng, TO, Julian, D Acronyms of cardiologic trials—2002. Int J Cardiol 2003;91,261-351[Medline]
  4. Insructions to authors. Chest 2004;125,A60



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This Article
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