Italian Medical Term Simplification: From Patient Information Leaflets to Simplified Language Resources

Terminological simplification in patient information leaflets (PILs) is implemented through a variety of linguistic
strategies. Although these strategies help improve text comprehensibility, their overall impact remains limited. The
complexity of PILs is still influenced by multiple factors, including frequent cross-referential terminology, the presence
of subordinate clauses, lengthy sentences, and the use of domain-specific terms. This paper introduces I-MTS
(Italian Medical Term Simplification), the first resource specifically developed for medical term simplification in Italian.
I-MTS is designed to support research on lexical simplification and to facilitate the automatic adaptation of medical
texts for non-expert audiences, thereby enhancing the readability and accessibility of health information in Italian.