A brief discussion on the Chinese translation of disease-modifying therapies / 中华神经科杂志

ABSTRACT

Ever since interferon-β was introduced into China more than 20 years ago and used in the disease-modifying therapies (DMT) of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, the Chinese translations of DMT used in China are quite puzzling, even clinicians are also difficult to understand the meaning of DMT. The authors searched and traced the origins of current DMT translations, which may be mainly due to the fact that the word "modifying" in Chinese contains two meanings: correction and alleviation, obviously currently used names prefer to correct, while the exact meaning of DMT should be to alleviate disease. Considering that inaccurate translation is widely used in domestic academic conferences and academic journals, it is easy to cause misunderstanding and ambiguity. The authors believe that the meaning of DMT should be correctly and deeply understood in the specific context, and the original meaning of alleviating disease should be returned, which is also in line with the two endpoints of immunomodulatory therapy for MS and optic neuromyelitis spectrum disease, the primary endpoint being to reduce the annual recurrence rate of the diseases, the secondary one being to slow the progression of disease disability.