Whether their aim is to describe specialized languages or language in its general use, lexicographers have been using computer corpora for a number of years. In this article, we attempt to show how such corpora can be used for the description of complex noun phrases in which a noun is modified by either an adjective or another noun, as most complex terms correspond to that type of structure in many specialized languages (although we focus specifically on the type of language used in medical research articles). The first part of the article examines to what extent frequency lists that are drawn up using specialized corpora make it possible to consider new term-candidates for inclusion in existing terminological databases. The question of how representative such corpora can be is also examined as we study the representation of terms that are already listed in terminological databases in a corpus that includes more than 5,000 medical research articles written in French. The second part of the article deals with the issue of the choice of an English translation equivalent for such terms, as the head noun may often be modified by either a noun or an adjective. The usefulness of resorting to computer corpora appears to be warranted in both cases.