Introduction

Throughout history, the discipline of anatomy has provided the educational foundation for all physicians and health professionals and, therefore, it has great importance since solid knowledge of the structure and function of the human body is a prerequisite for safe and efficient clinical practice (Asad et al. 2023; Galic et al. 2018; Hira et al. 2023; Tubbs 2023).

As in all sciences, anatomy has its own official nomenclature. Its origin dates to the ancient period, more than 2500 years ago, originally appearing in Greek and then in Latin. Since most terms come from these languages, they may seem difficult at first; however, as one learns the origin of the terms, the words begin to make sense (Moore et al. 2019). As well explained in his book, Terçariol (2018) points out that learning Anatomy consists not only of memorization but also of correlating the structures of the body and with the respective functions—this is a fundamental point for understanding. Besides, eponyms are sometimes used in addition to the terms of Greek or Latin origin.

Anatomical knowledge is widespread across different languages in several areas of knowledge, especially in medical education, clinical research, publication of articles and professional practice. Hippocrates wrote one of the first anatomical books between 460 and 377 B.C. followed by Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) and Galen (130–201 C.E.) (Burdan et al. 2016). In the sixteenth century, Andréas Vesalius produced De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (1543), which served as a reference to standardize anatomical terminology, and it was used throughout the civilized world (Lamy and Dantas 2008). Also, Montanus developed the first anatomical theater that served as the basis for Vesalius and Falloppio and Fabricius (Tubbs 2023). To make oneself understood, one must express oneself clearly, using the appropriate terms in the right way (Moore et al. 2019) and, realizing the need to standardize the nomenclature, an official document of Terminologia Anatomica was created in 1887 which must be followed until nowadays by authors of books, professors and students in health (Sociedade Brasileira de Anatomia 2001; Terçariol 2018) by employing the same name for each structure (Dangelo and Fattini 2007; Sociedade Brasileira de Anatomia 2001). The development of the nomenclature can be followed in the timeline below (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Timeline on the development of anatomical terminology, from 1887 to 2020

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Portuguese is a Neo-Latin language that evolved from Vulgar Latin which especially influences variations and approximations to the nomenclatures used in the anatomical lexicon. In clinical practice, in particular, the official terms are constantly and inappropriately replaced by new expressions, hindering Anatomy learning and teaching in the health area. The danger of this practice is great since the perpetuation of inappropriate terms that do not follow Terminologia Anatomica can become a permanent and/or preferred language among its practitioners (Gonçalves et al. 2020). Considering this, we revisited the literature through a systematic review of articles published by Latin American authors on Terminologia Anatomica, synthesizing the main results. From this, we will be able to raise the topic and understand what has been done with the Latin nomenclature.

Materials and methods

This study is a systematic review on Terminologia Anatomica in Latin-American countries. Data were collected and analyzed between July and November 2023. The study protocol was in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion criteria

  • Type of study (non-exclusive)

  • Language (non-exclusive)

  • Subject to be addressed in the article: Terminologia Anatomica in anatomy and human health

  • Articles written by at least one author from Latin-American countries

Exclusion criteria

Article

  • Free full-text article not available

  • Subjects other than Terminologia Anatomica in anatomy and human health

  • Articles exclusively written by authors who are not from Latin America countries and filtered by Scopus.

Source of information

The database selected for the review was Scopus Elsevier, and the search happened on July 09, 2023.

Search strategy

The terms used in the search strategy were chosen based on the subject anatomical terminology since there is no specific descriptor for this theme, and thus being a possible limitation of the study. It was not restricted to the date of publication or language. Applying the Boolean operator ''AND''.

Scopus via Elsevier

“Terminologia” AND “anatomica” were used.

Selection process

Two authors (DGG, GRG) worked independently, selected titles and abstracts of all studies screened through database search strategies and included them in the Rayyan™ (Intelligent Systematic Review). The full texts were collected and selected by applying the eligibility criteria pre-established by the authors. Disagreements were solved by consensus or, when necessary, a review by a third author (RR).

Data collection process

Two authors (JRC, MBM) independently extracted data from the included studies. A semi-structured form (on the Google Sheets platform) was used to collect the following data: title of the article, year of publication, journal of publication, keywords of the study, and country of origin.

Besides, the main objectives of the articles were collected and were divided into Proposal for inclusion of a new terminology, Terminology change proposal, Analysis of existing terminology and Proposal for the application of Terminologia Anatomica in everyday life.

Risk of bias in each study

Most of the original articles were used in this study. Regarding the studies, possible limitations were assessed—without the use of a structured evaluation or checklist.

Results

For this review, 207 candidate articles were identified from the Scopus database after applying the search strategy with no restriction of year of publication. After the exclusion of articles whose authorship was not Latin American (139), 68 articles were filtered based on their titles and abstracts, without the exclusion of any. Therefore, 68 articles were fully evaluated, resulting in 66 articles that met all the inclusion criteria of this review (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Prisma flow diagram of the review and articles included

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We obtained 66 articles (Table 1) on the theme of Terminologia Anatomica in anatomy and human health. The first article was published in 2002 with the theme "Nomenclature of the veins of the lower limbs: an international interdisciplinary consensus statement" (Caggiati et al. 2002). There is at least one article published every year from 2011 until the present date. Among them, the highest publication rate was observed in 2020, with a total of 10 articles (15%).

Table 1 Table of articles
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Regarding the published journals, 56 articles (84%) were published in the International Journal of Morphology. The other 10 articles (16%) were distributed in 10 journals that discuss various subjects.

Concerning the authors’ nationalities (Fig. 3), 47 (63.6%) are from Chile, followed by 16 (21.6%) from Colombia, 6 (8.1%) from Brazil, 4 (5.4%) from Ecuador, and 1 (1.3%) from Argentina.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Authors’ nationality

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After the review, four major themes discussed in the articles were found: Proposal for inclusion of a new terminology; Terminology change proposal; Analysis of existing terminology; and Proposal for the application of Terminologia Anatomica in everyday life. Among them, 22 proposed changes in Terminology, 15 proposed the inclusion of new terms, and the others covered the use of Terminology in the academic environment and explained the origin of existing terms. From this, the articles were separated as below for a more specific and organized discussion.

Proposal for inclusion of a new terminology

When analyzing the 66 previously selected articles, 15 of them proposed the inclusion of terms in English for Terminologia Anatomica (Alzate-Mejía et al. 2016; Del Sol and Vásquez 2014b; Duque and Ríos 2013; Duque Parra et al. 2016; Ferreira et al. 2011; Fuentes et al. 2016; Pacheco Muñoz et al. 2021; Parra and Vásquez 2020; Pérez-Rojas et al. 2019; Prieto Gómez and Ottone 2018; Riveros et al. 2019; Villarroel et al. 2016, 2020; Villarroel and Lizana 2018). The proposals follow one of the basic precepts of TA which is to assign a term that most faithfully represents the morphology, location, and arrangement of the structure (Ottone et al. 2017).

A major issue in the gap that exists in the nomenclature is the lack of official descriptors for notably known structures that have clinical and surgical importance. In this case, the term "spiral line" can be mentioned, which is a structure that marks the origin of the vastus medialis muscle and is not present in TA (Villarroel et al. 2020). Thus, just repeating the "old mantra" and that anatomical variations are important because the knowledge of them minimizes surgical complications. Although it is important, it is inadequate since its importance goes beyond such a factor (Saniotis and Henneberg 2021).

In recent decades, TA has incorporated new terms (Vidal-Seguel et al. 2021a) as in the chapter of Osteology whose numbers have tripled (Vásquez and Del Sol 2020). For several decades, anatomists and biological anthropologists have studied hard the anatomical variations in both ancestral and living humans. While many anatomical variants do not require clinical attention, some may present diagnostic problems or portend adverse symptoms. A study has demonstrated the presence of anatomical variations that, due to their constant presence, should be included, such as the anterolateral crest of the tibia (Pacheco Muñoz et al. 2021) whose prevalence was 100% in the analyzed pieces. Another example is the communicating branches between the median and ulnar nerves (Latim: Ramus comunicans cum nervus mediano, ramus comunicans cum nervus ulnari, ramus communicans cum ramo profundo nervi ulnaris, ramus communicans cum nervo digitali palmari communii) whose prevalence is greater than 50% in the analyzed specimens (Riveros et al. 2019).

In addition, the proposal to include new terms in TA occurs so that the use of eponyms is replaced by standardized words. In this case, the structure "abducens nerve canal" can be mentioned, which is a more descriptive and precise term that does not occur when using the eponymous Dorello’s canal (Duque Parra et al. 2017a).

Finally, in the Spanish literature, there is still a need to incorporate terms in their language that have their etymological origin preserved, as it is the case of "trabique" in place of the term "septum" (Latin) and its incorporation into the TA (Pérez-Rojas et al. 2019). There is also a need to incorporate embryological terms whose translation from Latin exists only in English, such as terms related to the human placenta (Prieto Gómez and Ottone 2018).

Terminology change proposal

Among the analyzed articles, 22 proposed changes to terms present in Terminologia Anatomica (Agurto et al. 2019; Alarcón-Apablaza et al. 2023; Caggiati et al. 2002; Carvallo et al. 2015a, b, 2017; Coello et al. 2015; Del Sol and Vásquez 2014a; Duque Parra et al. 2012, 2022; Maldonado-Rengel et al. 2021; Manterola et al. 2017; Ottone et al. 2017; Panes et al. 2020; Panes & Del Sol 2020; Parra and Vásquez 2020; Pérez et al. 2020; Pérez-Rojas et al. 2018; Vargas et al. 2016; Vásquez and del Sol 2015; Vidal-Seguel et al. 2023; Wen et al. 2020). The continuous development of the morphological sciences has created the need for periodic revisions of the nomenclature to suggest reliable and valid adjustments in the translation of anatomical terms into the vernacular language (Pérez-Rojas et al. 2018).

Among the various reasons that lead the authors to propose changes in terminology, one of them is the etymological inconsistencies. Although Terminologia Anatomica is under constant revision, there is still confusion about the correct term to be used for each structure, especially in Spanish. Examples that can be cited are the renaming of the muscle “omohyoideus” (Latin) to “Muscle scapulohyoideus” (Ottone et al. 2017). There was also the translation of Latin terms to Spanish by the Spanish Anatomical Society (2001) which recognized etymological errors in the translation of the term "Tunica" (Latin: Tunica) to "Capa" (Latin: Cappa) (Pérez-Rojas et al. 2018). Another reason the inadequacy to the objectives proposed by Anatomical Terminology, which recommends descriptive, informative, and harmonious names with the related structures, favoring scientific communication and morphology teaching and learning, such as in the case of including in the name the "mastoid" origin of the digastric muscle (Latin: M. digastricus), calling it the digastrichomastoid muscle (Carvallo et al. 2017). Another example is the term "Diastema" which should be replaced by "Spatium interdentale" (Latin) to be more accurate and depictive of this structure (Panes and Del Sol 2020). In addition, in relation to segment II or left lateral segment of the liver (Latin: Segmentum laterale sinistrum: Segmentum II), the inclusion of the adjective "posterior" in this term has been recommended, remaining as the left lateral posterior segment (Carvallo et al. 2015a, b; Manterola et al. 2017). Finally, we can mention the possibility of changing the term plantar muscle (Latin: M. plantaris) to femorocalcaneal muscle with the same objective of making it more faithful to and descriptive about the origin, insertion and topographic location (Coello et al. 2015).

Analysis of existing terminology

Several of the presented articles sought to explain the existence of existing terms. Some of them come from Greek and they are different from the terms that come from Latin. However, it is important to mention that the TA indicates that the terms must be in Latin. A set of anatomical terms originating in Ancient Greece uses the Greek lexeme-phy-sis or its counterpart-fisis in Spanish, which is the reason why one of the works aims to analyze its meaning and etymology in the dictionary of the University of Salamanca, Diccionario de Medical Terms of the Royal National Academy of Medicine, and in the Greek-Latin Etymological Dictionary of Spanish to contribute to the understanding and learning of Terminologia Anatomica in the study of human anatomy (Moya Daza et al. 2017).

In 2019, a revision of the official anatomical nomenclature, Terminologia Anatomica 2 (TA2), was issued and, after a referendum among Member Societies, it was officially approved by the General Assembly of the International Federation of Associations of Anatomists in 2020. TA2 is based on a new version of the Regular Anatomical Terminology (RAT) rules. This situation breaks with several traditional views of terminology in a way that the changes in the Terminologia Anatomica 1998 (TA98) have faced great resistance in many European Anatomical Societies, and, unfortunately, their members are not willing to use terms that follow the rules of the RAT. Therefore, European anatomy professors and scientists who use traditional Latin in their classes, textbooks and atlases will continue to use TA98 (ten Donkelaar et al. 2024).

For instance, the term "humor" refers to the fluid, but its names do not provide sufficient information about the anatomical position or function, therefore, it is imprecise. (García-Orozco et al. 2023). The same occurs with the terms "cuerpo rojo" (Latin: Corpus rubrum), "cuerpo amarillo" (Latin:Corpus luteum), and "cuerpo blanco" (Latin:Corpus albicans) which correspond to a mixture between Spanish and Latin (Vaca-Merino et al. 2022), describe anatomical structures of the ovary but do not identify them.

There are also structures that receive more than one name such as "lymphatic node" (Latin:Noduli lynfoidei), whose terms indicated in the TA are “Nodus lymphoideus; Nodus lymphaticus; Lymphonodus”, which translates to “nodo linfático”, but the widely used nomenclature is “gânglio linfático” (Vásquez and Del Sol 2014). Finally, the translation into Spanish is not oftencoherent, as it is the case with “proceso” translated to “apófisis” and “margen” to “borde”, which hinders its correct etymological and anatomical use (Vidal-Seguel et al. 2021a, b).

Eponyms are widely used in the world literature and they bring people's names to refer to a structure (Moore et al. 2019). However, in TAthe terms must have a unique identifying number, descriptive or etymological characteristics that facilitate the understanding of the facts or their connection with the nature or cause of the subject in question (Lamy and Dantas 2008; Whitmore 1999) but it does not occur with eponyms since they do not refer to anatomical and functional characteristics, such as the term “hímen” (Latin:Hymen), which comes from the name of the Greek god of matrimony Hymeneus (Parra et al. 2022); also the eponym "Atlas"(Latin), a time-honored term whose origin is also in Greek mythology (Duque et al. 2019); the eponym "Dorello's canal", referring to the anatomist who described the canal through which the abducens nerve passes (Duque Parra et al. 2017a); and the term "Gerdy's tubercle", widely disseminated in the language of the medical sciences, which has originated from the French name Pierre Nicolas Gerdy, a physician who described the structure (Pacheco and Pérez 2019). Similar to eponyms, some incorrect terms are still present in anatomy books, such as the term "rótula" to refer to "patella"(Latin), the correct name present in Anatomical Terminology; however, in Colombia, it is still present in some books, hindering the universal language (Duque Parra et al. 2018a).

The use of prefixes and suffixes also play an important role in the study of anatomy and it helps the search for etymological and grammatical meaning. All of them are concordant with their use in anatomy, giving different meanings to terms and relating perfectly to the anatomical description. These prefixes and suffixes are mainly of Latin origin, followed by Greek origin. The most frequent Latin prefix is "inter-" and the most frequent Greek one is "para-". Their use helps the study of anatomy, which often has a vast vocabulary, since comprehension becomes less arduous with the help of grammar (Vidal-Seguel et al. 2021b). The prefix "neuro-" is widely used and it allows the inference of 26 anatomical terms, which highlights its importance (Moya Daza et al. 2017).

Proposal application of Terminologia Anatomica in everyday life

In one of the selected articles, a retrospective statistical study was carried out through an anonymous survey with 96 physicians specialized in General Surgery which was carried out at the III Chair of Anatomy of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires from May 2005 to May 2006. After 5 years, from July 2010 to July 2011, this research was repeated with 92 physicians specialized in General Surgery. Regarding the evaluated specialty, it was observed that the number of medical specialists who became aware of the existence of an official list of names of anatomical structures increased over the years (Algieri et al. 2013).

Discussion

In 1989, the Federative International Committee on Anatomical Terminology (FICAT) was created after a discussion that included 11 countries from five continents, including Brazil. FICAT is a committee of the IFAA, the world body that prepares the consensual listings of anatomical terms and it was up to it to prepare the final version of the Terminology, which was officially announced in August 1997. This list was sent to all anatomical societies to be translated into several languages (dos Dornelles 2014; Duque Parra et al. 2021). The first terminology prepared and accepted by the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, now called the Anatomical Society, is still the best source of translation of Latin terms into English.

In Brazil, International Anatomical Terminology is translated by the Anatomical Terminology Committee (CTA) of the Brazilian Society of Anatomy (SBA). Following the recommendations of the Federative Committee on Anatomical Terminology (FICAT), some standards were adopted for its translation, such as (Gardner 1998):

  1. 1.

    Terminologia Anatomica in Latin and the translation into Portuguese by its side.

  2. 2.

    Translation into the desired language as close as possible to the original Latin language but adopting the term in the adjectival form, not genitive, when this was the one in current use, not distancing itself from the original such as: posterior cerebral artery and not posterior artery of the brain (Latin:A.Cerebri posterior). Maintain the coherence and harmonization of terms in the various segments.

  3. 3.

    Although banned from Terminologia Anatomica decades ago, eponyms continue to be used by physicians in their specialties. Their exclusion will facilitate the use of the official terms, avoiding greater difficulties.

  4. 4.

    The application of Terminologia Anatomica depends solely on the professors of anatomy and anatomy.

Despite this initiative, there are still deficient terms in Latin languages, especially in Spanish. This is because the anatomical terms were assimilated into Spanish by countries in the Iberian Peninsula, not Latin America, creating the etymological discrepancy (Duque Parra et al. 2018c). Although several studies have been dedicated to the use and application of the recent version of Terminologia Anatomica in both theoretical medicine and clinical practice, there are still many unresolved problems such as confusing terms, inconsistencies, and spelling and grammatical errors.

When talking about existing terms, it is necessary to analyze the term and its linguistic contribution since some terms, by being disentangled from their etymological origin, hinder learning in anatomy, which is considered complex with the requirement of memorizing numerous terms that, if correctly associated with their etymological and morphological relationship, could help in the process (García-Orozco et al. 2023; Torres Merchán, 2014). An attempt to disseminate TA occurred with the SBA, which worked together with FICAT and Brazilian publishers so that the universal nomenclature could be adopted in the translations of books and original works (Abib & Oréfice 2005).

Through TA, it is necessary to avoid possible ambiguities and consequent confusions in clinical practice (Caggiati et al. 2002). Novak and collaborators (Novak et al. 2008), when dealing with terminology in Orthopedics, highlight the presence of numerous terms to designate the same structure, which leads to confusion and plurality within publications and difficulty in indexing journals. The terms officially and internationally agreed upon help in scientific updating and conceptual clarification, but they are not always respected in articles, textbooks, or atlases (Werneck and Batigália 2009).

The redundant use of terms in morphology hinders student learning and goes against the precepts established by the Federative International Programme for Anatomical Terminology (FIPAT) on the use of a unified Terminologia Anatomica, through which redundancy is intended to be avoided. Thus, Terminologia Anatomica should continue to be rationally refined to avoid the unnecessary use of synonymous terms describing the same structure (Duque Parra et al. 2012).

Obsolete and incorrect terms are still present in school texts. A study carried out in Chile analyzed the terminology used in texts by elementary school students and it showed that almost 40% of the terms that were used were not correct, evidencing the importance of reviewing widely used textbooks because this erroneous basic learning can hinder correct learning over the years (Pino-Araya et al. 2022). In addition, another Chilean study aimed to evaluate the use of International Anatomical Terminology (IAT) in Chilean national biology education programs. An analysis of the terms used in high school programs of the Ministry of Education (9th to 12th grade) was carried out and the results showed that 11.43% of the terminology used in high school biology curriculum did not adhere to the IAT in the Federative International Programme for Anatomical Terminology (FIPAT) (Caro et al. 2018). It is important to mention that among the different types of animals (fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals) the terms for the same structure receive different names and are less clear than those for human mammals.

One initiative to facilitate learning and "correct" conflicts due to the lack of standardization was the creation of specialty tables and dictionaries. One of them, developed by the ophthalmological medical profession, aims to inform the existence of the Portuguese edition of TA, whose objective was to make the names of the described structures more rational and objective, removing eponyms and facilitating their memorization and use (Abib and Oréfice 2005). In addition, a multilingual terminological dictionary (Latin–English–Portuguese–Spanish) sought to list the medical anatomical terms in English commonly used in the subspecialties of cardiology (Werneck and Batigália 2009). Also, among otorhinolaryngologists, an adapted version in Portuguese of the ''European Anatomical Terminology of the Internal Nose and Paranasal Sinuses'' was consolidated which will help the publication of technical communications, scientific publications, and the internal anatomical terms teaching of the nose and paranasal cavities in Brazil (Bezerra et al. 2018). These results can serve as an important basic resource for the revision and standardization of terminology used in biomedical fields. Collaboration between anatomists, biologists, and high school teachers is a necessary requirement for making changes to curricula to improve the use of IAT in teacher education and in Biology and Natural Sciences classes (Caro et al. 2018).

With regard to some medical specialties, such as general surgery, it has been observed that there has been an increase in the number of medical specialists over the years who have become aware of the existence of an official list of names of anatomical structures and also in the number of those who have begun to implement the IAT as the official. However, most doctors are still unaware of its existence or its name. Therefore, it is necessary to work on this aspect to encourage the permanent updating and unification of terms to facilitate teaching, learning and scientific communication. As the doctors are specialized in morphological disciplines and those who apply them in daily activities, they are responsible for stimulating their own knowledge (Algieri et al. 2013).

Eponyms bring color to medicine, incorporate medical traditions and culture into our history, e.g., Willis' circle, Graaf's follicle, Sylvius' fossa, Monro's foramen, Adamkiewicz's artery, Achilles tendon, and Atlas. However, the lack of precision of eponyms is a frequent cause of confusion since sometimes more than one eponym has been described for the same anatomical structure, or even a single eponym for two different anatomical structures (Burdan et al. 2016). Besides, several eponyms are not historically correct in identifying the first person to describe a structure or its function and they do not conform to an international standard (Moore et al. 2019).

The incorrect use of terms is seen in several areas, including in environments where it should be essential to respect the use of official Terminologia Anatomica. A study was conducted to analyze the use of eponyms at the 18th Congress of International Federation of Associations of Anatomists in 2014. All of the oral presentations used eponyms, but, positively, a minority included eponyms among posters (Duque Parra et al. 2018a, b, c; Duque Parra et al. 2017a, b). Another study was carried out to analyze the use of obsolete eponyms and anatomical terms at the XIII Colombian Congress of Morphology in 2017. It was found that within the oral presentations more than half used eponyms repetitively, and about 40% used obsolete terms (Duque-Parra et al. 2020).

The proper usage of Terminologia Anatomica is important to medical students and practicing physicians. Learning, remembering, and understanding the anatomical terms in the first year of medical school are a great challenge (Strzelec et al. 2017). It is estimated that students are expected to learn about 15,000 new words in their first 3 years (Gutiérrez 2005). Similarly, poor learning of specialized terminology is one of the most important factors in students' school failure (Vásquez and Del Sol 2014).

Anatomy is the study of the structure of the human body and a good understanding of it is required from all healthcare professionals for efficient medical intervention. On the other hand, anatomists are the professionals who are responsible for teaching anatomy to medical and related health students. The steady increase in the number of medical schools, student enrollments and educational programs that require anatomical knowledge has resulted in an inadequate supply of anatomy educators. Consequently, an increasing number of people without basic training in anatomy are becoming educators in the field (Chia and Oyeniran 2020). As Moerkerke and Ceusters (2000) have pointed out, it sometimes seems that each clinician has his or her own preferred term. However, while anatomists should not simply dictate to physicians how to use terminology, they should perhaps take a more proactive role in connecting with clinical practice (Galic et al. 2018). This fact becomes important when recent research shows that the students’ knowledge of anatomy students is not obtained under the purposes of Terminologia Anatomica (TA) because there is greater recognition of the basic medical-clinical concepts of anatomy that use eponyms since the use of TA is not reinforced during these student cycles (Parra Gámez et al. 2015; Vásquez and del Sol 2015).

Although Terminologia Anatomica is open to future expansions and revisions, all modifications should be made after an in-depth discussion of the historical context and scientific legitimacy of a given term. Anatomical nomenclature should be as simple as possible but also coherent. It is generally accepted that hasty innovation should not be endorsed. Therefore, there is a need to look more closely at these new proposals as they have been presented in numerous scattered documents.

Limitations

As pointed out in the methodology, a standard descriptor for Terminologia Anatomica was not obtained, which is a limitation since eventual articles may not have been obtained. As the study only evaluates articles which were published in journals indexed in Scopus, some articles published in non-indexed journals were not included.

Conclusion

It is remarkable that the advances present in current literature with the creation of Terminologia Anatomica unified the scientific language throughout the world to facilitate communication between professionals. However, there is still a lack of progress within the medical field regarding the use of the correct nomenclature, making the use of old and invalidated eponyms or nomenclatures incessant worldwide. In addition, some of the articles sought to change a term or create a new term to expand the scope of TA and regulate other structures, showing that, in this regard, it is an area to be advanced. That said, the use of nomenclatures is a subject of international discussion that requires agreement between anatomists and clinicians. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out a specific analysis within the Latin language of the used terms and their origin and to evaluate their coherence and anatomical correspondence. Human anatomy is a living science and it is constantly evolving. With the advent of new technologies and evolution of the human being, new structures are yet to come.