The SinoNasal Outcome Test (SNOT-22). Best medical acronym ever? Do you have a fave medical acronym?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My patient with ENT issues underwent the SNOT-22 a while back, and I finally got the report. It’s a predictor of post-surgical improvement in patients with chronic sinusitis.

SNOT-22

This test replaced the previous SNOT-20 test, basically by adding two more questions to the test.

It asks questions about nasal d/c, facial pain, breathing difficulty, sleep problems, ear symptoms, sneezing, coughing, depression etc. asked prior to sinus/nasal surgery and 6 months after, to measure whether or not surgery helped. It seems to show that people who had more/worse symptoms before surgery had better outcomes than those with fewer/lesser symptoms. Good to know, thanks for the info.

I’d been unaware of the SNOT-22 test until now, but I just wanted to share it because I think it’s one of the top medical acronyms I’ve encountered. It dispels the tired old saw that otolaryngologists are no fun.

2

Not a medical acronym, but I still recall one of the most tortured acronyms ever from a book I read as a kid. It was for a robotic whale observation system that, itself, looked like a whale – the Motorized Observation Biotelemetry Yacht Data Integration and Control, or MOBY-DIC.

3

SLUDGE refers to the symptoms people get from sarin poisoning, all referring to body secretions: Saliva, Lacrimination, Urination, Defecation, Gastrointestinal distress, and Emesis.

4

Here’s the only reference I’ve ever found to MOBY-DIC (page 5):

edited to add:

Wow! Here’s another! Corroboration!

5

The PUQE questionnaire (Pregnancy-Unique Quantification of Emesis).

6

That’s quite some snot, that SNOT-22.

7

ACHOO - Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helioopthalmic Outburst

I learned about it from the interesting random fact thread. Very contrived acronym, and they skipped the “D”.

8

great acronym but why “Sino”? Does sino not mean Chinese? Nothing in the article linked points to why the term “sino” is used…

9

Sino-, from late Latin Sinae does mean Chinese, but in this case the sino- prefix undoubtedly refers to the sinuses (from a different Latin word sinus meaning “bay” or “curve”).

10

From which we also get the term ‘sinuous’. The prefix ‘sino’ for referring to the sinus, nasal, and palate regions of the head is extremely common in medicine. markn_1 is on the nares with his post.

11

DOA

(Drunk, Often or Always)

12

One of my favorites from long ago when doing forensic pathology rotations was SMELLBAD, an acronym which I believe was intended to aid in estimating time of death.

I went back to my old files but couldn’t find the original reference. An Internet search doesn’t turn up anything helpful.

Hopefully some Doper has knowledge of SMELLBAD and can enlighten us as to its components.*

*I suspect such things as Lividity, Autolysis and Slippage figure into creation of the acronym.

13

“I was told my kid was in an accident and was brought here. Where is he?”

“I. C. U.”

“I see you, too, but where the hell is he?”

:crazy_face:

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@Jackmannii

I found this but couldn’t track it down further.

“Smellbad” Study
Zumwalt et al, 1982, JFS 549-54

“A study by Zumwalt, Bost, and Sunshine in 1982 [11] examined the fluids of 130
putrefied bodies for the presence of alcohol. The degree of putrefaction was specified in
the study and characterized by an objectively defined putrefaction score, SMELLBAD.”
alcohol in decomposed bodies

15

Thanks, that’s a promising lead. I don’t think I’ll spend $25 for a copy of the original paper, which may further explain SMELLBAD and its uses.