Persons whose kidney pathology wasn't confirmed/corroborated....

[milan2003_07]

Hello,

When doctors suspect that a person might have developed a disease they ask him to take some tests and examinations in order to establish his diagnosis. After the tests doctors make a conclusion. My sentence below illustrates just this:

Persons whose kidney pathology wasn't confirmed/corroborated were told just not to drink so much alchogol and to keep their feet warm to avoid catching a cold.

Are both words "confirmed" and "corroborated" possible here? I'm more interested about "corrobotated" since "confirmed" is used too often in contexts like mine.

Thanks everyone

[probus]

While dictionaries all concur that confirm and corroborate are synonyms, my gut tells me that corroborate is more used in legal contexts and confirm in medical contexts. In academic writing (which I happen to know you are engaged in) it is no bad thing to adhere to the conventional expressions. Scholarly papers in the medical sciences are not less appreciated for using the common words and phrases. In fact, using the standard forms reduces the chance of readers misunderstanding you.

[milan2003_07]

Thanks, my dear friend!!!

What do you think about this:

https://www.google.ru/search?hl=ru&n...rp.J1Bi6Zvyv5Y

[probus]

Hello my friend:

I may have been wrong. It was only a gut feeling. And I did not say that corroborate is rarely or never used in medical contexts, only that I felt it was less common than confirm. You seem to agree with me; after all, it was you who first indicated that confirmed was over-used in your profession. Evidently a good many of your colleagues agree with you on that point.