Terminologia Anatomica after 17 years: inconsistencies, mistakes and new proposals

The article deals with our experience of Terminologia Anatomica (TA) in fields of education (of systemic and topographic anatomy) and clinical medicine (teaching of clinical anatomy and courses for young physicians in endoscopy). The anatomical nomenclature in Latin has been official for 120 years and its latest version for 17 years. Its main weak points should be discussed in public (or at least the discussion should be provoked), which is the reason for publishing the following findings and ensuing proposals. They are classified with seven groups: mistakes in TA, discrepancies in TA, multiplication of terms, synonyms in TA, identical terms for different structures, too long terms and missing terms in TA. The last group comprises missing terms in systemic anatomy, clinical anatomy, a paucity of terms in variant anatomy, in locomotion system and in topographic anatomy. Several attempts to draw attention to these have been made by the publication of inaccuracies in Nomina Anatomica and TA but this article summarizes and reviews current situation, emphasizing the weak points of the TA and brings several proposals and suggestions for further discussion.