The Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED) is a systematic, computer-processable collection of medical terms, in human and

veterinary medicine Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, medical diagnosis, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in non-human animals. The scope of veterinary medicine is wide, covering all a ...

, to provide codes, terms, synonyms and definitions which cover

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

diseases A disease is a particular abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism and is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that are asso ...

, findings, procedures,

microorganisms A microorganism, or microbe, is an organism of microscopic size, which may exist in its single-celled form or as a colony of cells. The possible existence of unseen microbial life was suspected from antiquity, with an early attestation in ...

, substances, etc. It allows a consistent way to index, store, retrieve, and aggregate medical data across specialties and sites of care. Although now international, SNOMED was started in the

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

by the College of American Pathologists (CAP) in 1973 and revised into the 1990s. In 2002 CAP's SNOMED Reference Terminology (SNOMED RT) was merged with, and expanded by, the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

's Clinical Terms Version 3 (previously known as the Read codes) to produce SNOMED CT. Versions of SNOMED released prior to 2001 were based on a multiaxial,

hierarchical classification Hierarchical classification is a system of grouping things according to a hierarchy. In the field of machine learning, hierarchical classification is sometimes referred to as instance space decomposition, which splits a complete multi-class clas ...

system. As in any such system, a disease may be located in a body

organ (anatomy) In a multicellular organism, an organ is a collection of Tissue (biology), tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function. In the biological organization, hierarchy of life, an organ lies between Tissue (biology), tissue and an o ...

, which results in a code in a topography axis and may lead to morphological alterations represented by a morphology code. In 2002 the first release of

SNOMED CT SNOMED CT or SNOMED Clinical Terms is a systematically organized computer-processable collection of medical terms providing codes, terms, synonyms and definitions used in clinical documentation and reporting. SNOMED CT is considered to be the mo ...

adopted a completely different structure. A sub-type hierarchy, supported by defining relationships based on

description logic Description logics (DL) are a family of formal knowledge representation languages. Many DLs are more expressive than propositional logic but less expressive than first-order logic. In contrast to the latter, the core reasoning problems for DLs are ...

, replaced the axes described in this article. Versions of SNOMED prior to SNOMED CT are planned to be formally deprecated from 2017.Deprecation of Antecedent Versions of SNOMED by IHTSDO General Assembly
/ref> Therefore, readers interested in current information about SNOMED are directed to the article on

Purpose

SNOMED was designed as a comprehensive

nomenclature Nomenclature (, ) is a system of names or terms, or the rules for forming these terms in a particular field of arts or sciences. (The theoretical field studying nomenclature is sometimes referred to as ''onymology'' or ''taxonymy'' ). The principl ...

of clinical medicine for the purpose of accurately storing and/or retrieving records of clinical care in human and

. The metaphor used by Roger A. Côté, the first editorial chair, was that SNOMED would become the periodic table of elements of medicine because of its definitional organization beyond the hierarchical design. Indeed, diseases and procedures were ordered hierarchically and are further referenced back to more elementary terms

History

SNOMED was originally conceived by Côté as an extension of the design of the Systematized Nomenclature of Pathology (SNOP) applicable for all medicine. SNOP was originally designed by Arnold Pratt to describe pathological specimens according to their morphology and anatomy (topography). The ambitious development of SNOMED required many more axes (see multi-axial design, below). SNOMED was jointly proposed for development to the College of American Pathologists by Côté and Pratt. The former was appointed as editorial chair of the Committee on Nomenclature and Classification of Diseases of the CAP and developed the SNOMED from 1973 to 1997. In 1998, Kent Spackman was appointed to chair this committee and spearheaded the transformation of the multi-axis systems into a highly computable form (See

): a

directed acyclic graph In mathematics, particularly graph theory, and computer science, a directed acyclic graph (DAG) is a directed graph with no directed cycles. That is, it consists of vertices and edges (also called ''arcs''), with each edge directed from one ...

anchored in formal representation logic. In 2007, the newly formed

International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation The International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO), trading as SNOMED International, is private company limited by guarantee and established under the laws of England that owns SNOMED CT, a leading clinic ...

( IHTSDO) acquired all the Intellectual Property of

and all antecedent SNOMED versions. Brief timeline: * 1965 SNOP * 1974 SNOMED * 1979 SNOMED II * 1993 SNOMED International 3.0 * 1995 SNOMED Microglossary of Signs and Symptoms * 1993-98 SNOMED International versions 3.1-3.5 * 2002 First release of

* 2007 All versions of SNOMED acquired by IHTSDO * 2017 All SNOMED versions except

have been formally deprecated by IHTSDO

Reference ontology

SNOMED was designed from its inception with complex concepts defined in terms of simpler ones. For example, a disease can be defined in terms of its abnormal anatomy, abnormal functions and morphology. In some cases, the

etiology Etiology (; alternatively spelled aetiology or ætiology) is the study of causation or origination. The word is derived from the Greek word ''()'', meaning "giving a reason for" (). More completely, etiology is the study of the causes, origins ...

of the disease is known and can be attributed to an infectious agent, a physical trauma or a chemical or pharmaceutical agent.

Multi-axial design

The current concept uses eleven (11) axes that comprise terms organised in hierarchical trees. The axes and some examples are provided below:

T (Topography) – Anatomic terms

* (T-28000)

Lung The lungs are the primary Organ (biology), organs of the respiratory system in many animals, including humans. In mammals and most other tetrapods, two lungs are located near the Vertebral column, backbone on either side of the heart. Their ...

* (T-32000)

Heart The heart is a muscular Organ (biology), organ found in humans and other animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels. The heart and blood vessels together make the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrie ...

* (T-51000)

Mouth A mouth also referred to as the oral is the body orifice through which many animals ingest food and animal communication#Auditory, vocalize. The body cavity immediately behind the mouth opening, known as the oral cavity (or in Latin), is also t ...

* (T-D2500) Hip * (T-D9600)

Heel The heel is the prominence at the posterior end of the foot. It is based on the projection of one bone, the calcaneus or heel bone, behind the articulation of the bones of the lower leg. Structure To distribute the compressive forces exerted ...

M (Morphology) – Changes found in cells, tissues and organs

* (M-40000)

Inflammation Inflammation (from ) is part of the biological response of body tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. The five cardinal signs are heat, pain, redness, swelling, and loss of function (Latin ''calor'', '' ...

* (M-44000)

Granuloma A granuloma is an aggregation of macrophages (along with other cells) that forms in response to chronic inflammation. This occurs when the immune system attempts to isolate foreign substances that it is otherwise unable to eliminate. Such sub ...

* (M-54700) Infarcted * (M-54701) Microscopic infarct ''For the Morphology axis, SNOMED ha
agreed
to collaborate and use the same harmonized codes shared with

International Classification of Diseases for Oncology The International Classification of Diseases for Oncology (ICD-O) is a domain-specific extension of the ICD, International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems for tumor diseases. This classification is widely used by ...

. Additional examples on topology are provided on that page.''

L (Living organisms) – Bacteria and viruses

* (L-21801)

Mycobacterium tuberculosis ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (M. tb), also known as Koch's bacillus, is a species of pathogenic bacteria in the family Mycobacteriaceae and the causative agent of tuberculosis. First discovered in 1882 by Robert Koch, ''M. tuberculosis'' ha ...

* (L-25116)

Streptococcus pneumoniae ''Streptococcus pneumoniae'', or pneumococcus, is a Gram-positive, spherical bacteria, hemolysis (microbiology), alpha-hemolytic member of the genus ''Streptococcus''. ''S. pneumoniae'' cells are usually found in pairs (diplococci) and do not f ...

C (Chemical) – Drugs

* (C-C137A) Bufferin

Analgesic An analgesic drug, also called simply an analgesic, antalgic, pain reliever, or painkiller, is any member of the group of drugs used for pain management. Analgesics are conceptually distinct from anesthetics, which temporarily reduce, and in s ...

Tablets * (C-C137B) Bufferin

Caplets

F (Function) – Signs and symptoms

* (F-03003)

Fever Fever or pyrexia in humans is a symptom of an anti-infection defense mechanism that appears with Human body temperature, body temperature exceeding the normal range caused by an increase in the body's temperature Human body temperature#Fever, s ...

J (Occupation) – Terms that describe the occupation

* Kindergarten teacher (13420) * Computer programmer (08420) * Doctor (06105) * Professional Nurse (General) (07110) * Beautician (57040)

D (Diagnosis) – Diagnostic terms

* (D-13510) Pneumococcal pneumonia * (D-14800)

Tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

* (D3-15000)

Myocardial infarction A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

P (Procedure) – Administrative, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures

A (Physical agents, forces, activities) – Devices and activities associated with the disease

S (Social context) – Social conditions and important relationships in medicine

* (S-10120)

Mother A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of ges ...

G (General) – Syntactic linkages and qualifiers

References

External links

Official page at snomed.org
(now redirects t
www.ihtsdo.org

SNOCat: the SNOMED Categorizer/Browser to automatically encode medical narratives - provided by the BiTeM group (http://bitem.hesge.ch) !
{{Medical classification Diagnosis codes Clinical procedure classification Anatomical terminology de:SNOMED