Unremarkable
Read Your Scan Editorial Team·Last updated
Written from published radiology references and reviewed for plain language. Not written or signed by a physician, and not a diagnosis. How we write these pages →
In plain language
Normal. It is the word radiologists use instead of "normal" for a structure they looked at carefully and found nothing worth writing about. It is good news, said flatly.
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Where you'll see this
Anywhere in the findings section, on every kind of scan — usually attached to an organ, as in "the liver is unremarkable".
Your report may word it “Otherwise unremarkable” or “Unremarkable appearance”. These mean the same thing.
Questions worth asking your doctor
- Does this wording mean you are unsure, or that you are reasonably confident and being careful?
- If something cannot be ruled out from this scan, what would rule it out?
- Is there anything here you would act on today?
How often does this turn up?
Unremarkable is one of the most-used words in the whole of radiology, and it appears somewhere in the majority of reports. It is the standard way a radiologist writes "I looked at this carefully and there is nothing here worth describing". It is not a hedge and not a shrug: naming a structure and calling it unremarkable is a positive statement that it was examined and found normal. The reason it reads coldly is that reports are written to another doctor, and between doctors the flat word is the efficient one.
Does it mean something is wrong?
On its own it is good news, and the phrase that most often causes alarm — grossly unremarkable — is the same good news said slightly differently. Grossly here means "on the whole", "at the level of detail this scan can see", not "severely". A report saying the osseous structures are grossly unremarkable is saying the bones look fine. What the word does not do is stretch beyond the structure it is attached to: "the aorta is unremarkable" says something about the aorta and nothing about anything else, and unremarkable on one kind of scan does not rule out what that scan cannot show.
What to do with it
Nothing follows from the word itself. It appears in the findings section, structure by structure, and the sentence that actually carries the conclusion is in the impression at the end. If the impression is unremarkable too, the scan found nothing to act on — which is worth reading twice, because people who are anxious often skip past it looking for the bad news and do not register that there is not any.
Frequently asked questions
- What does grossly unremarkable mean?
- It means normal at the level of detail the scan can resolve. Grossly is being used in its old sense of "broadly" or "overall", not in the everyday sense of "badly" — it is the same word as in "gross anatomy". A radiologist writing grossly unremarkable is telling the referring doctor that nothing stood out on review.
- Why do radiologists write unremarkable instead of normal?
- Because normal is a stronger claim than an image can support. Unremarkable says nothing was seen worth remarking on, which is precisely what the radiologist can testify to; normal would imply a judgement about health that needs your symptoms, your examination and often other tests. The habit is caution, not evasion.
- Everything is unremarkable but I still have symptoms. What now?
- This is common and it is not a contradiction. Imaging shows structure, and plenty of things that cause real pain — nerve irritation, inflammation, muscular and functional problems, and much early disease — leave no mark a scan can pick up. An unremarkable report rules some causes out; it does not rule your symptoms out, and it is a reason to keep the conversation with your doctor going rather than to close it.
Careful and hedged wording
Where this word comes up
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