Examples of Patient-Friendly Language Table

New to science? FORCE will train you to use your personal experiences to help guide hereditary cancer research.

Examples of patient-friendly language for study descriptions

Instead of this term	Consider using this term
Adverse event	Side effect or harmful effect
Agent	Drug
Cohort	Group or sub-group
Comorbidity	Other illnesses or diseases patients may have
Familial cancer	Hereditary cancer or cancer that runs in the family
Germline mutation	Inherited mutation
Identify	Look for
Individuals	People
Intervention	Treatment/Tool/Test
Mutation carrier	Person with an inherited mutation
Pathogenic variant	Mutation
Patients who failed treatment	Patients whose cancer got worse or returned during or after treatment
Progression free survival	The amount of time before a patient’s cancer grows or gets worse
Somatic mutation	Tumor mutation or acquired mutation
Subjects	Participants
Treatment arm	Group receiving treatment
Trial	Study