Misnomers in Dermatology and Other Medical Specialties—How to Deal with Science Fiction?

Background/Objectives: A “misnomer” is a term that is erroneous or inaccurate. Dermatology is replete with well-established misnomers such as “Mycosis fungoides”, “keratoacanthoma”, “actinomycosis”, “granuloma pyogenicum”, or “Kaposi sarcoma”. Misnomers have originated from misconceptions or mistranslations that were passed down historically, and reflect the comparative–descriptive origin of terminology. We aimed to collect and categorize (non-)dermatological misnomers and to assess strategies for abandoning them. Methods: A questionnaire-based survey with 411 senior academic physicians of five university hospitals in Switzerland was conducted to evaluate the frequency of misnomers across dermatology and other specialties. In addition, a systematic review was conducted, complemented by manual searches to collect medical misnomers. Results: The survey and systematic review yielded 536 non-dermatological and 168 dermatological misnomers, pointing to a particular abundance of misnomers in dermatology, which could be categorized into seven categories. A wrong pathological concept was the most common origin of misnomers. Amongst dermatologists, 60.0% regarded misnomers as a relevant problem in their specialty compared to only 35.5% of non-dermatologists. Preferred strategies for abandoning misnomers were avoidance, consensus definitions, and information in teaching. Conclusions: Our results show that misnomers are particularly abundant in dermatology, indicating the need to modernize terminology.