Chronic fatigue syndrome classified under Neurological disorder in SNOMED CT International Edition

Post #342 Shortlink: https://wp.me/pKrrB-4pK

SNOMED CT is a standardized electronic terminology system for recording and sharing symptoms, diagnoses, clinical findings, procedures etc. in primary and secondary care and across other health care settings.

Since April 2018, SNOMED CT UK Edition has been the mandatory terminology system for use in NHS primary care, replacing the Read Code (CTV3) terminology which is now retired. SNOMED CT UK Edition is scheduled for adoption across all NHS clinical settings by 2020.

In SNOMED CT terminology system, disease and disorder terms are not arranged in chapters, as they are in ICD-10 and ICD-11. Instead, terms are arranged within a hierarchical relationship of parent and children concepts (or supertypes and subtypes).

The SNOMED CT Concept term for Chronic fatigue syndrome is SCTID 52702003 Chronic fatigue syndrome (disorder). Benign myalgic encephalomyelitis; and Myalgic encephalomyelitis are included as Synonym terms.

Chronic fatigue syndrome has historically been located under the Parent Concept: Multisystem disorder.

Multisystem disorder Parent retired for January 2018 release

In 2017, SNOMED CT terminology managers decided that the Multisystem disorder concept term was not sufficiently specific for the purposes of their system and the term was inactivated (retired) for the January 2018 release.

There had been 90 Children terms under SCTID: 281867008 Multisystem disorder (disorder) and the retirement of this parent concept had implications for all of these 90 terms — not just for Chronic fatigue syndrome and its Synonym terms.

Many of these 90 Children terms were assigned under a more specific parent but a few, including Chronic fatigue syndrome, had no new parent assigned to them.

This presented an opportunity to request a more specific parent for Chronic fatigue syndrome.

In February 2018, a formal request and rationale for adding the supertype: Disorder of nervous system was submitted.

Chronic fatigue syndrome classified under Neurological disorder for July 2018 release

Following a peer review process, the addition of the parent: Disorder of nervous system for Chronic fatigue syndrome was provisionally approved for implementation in the next release, which has been finalized and published.

SCTID: 52702003 Chronic fatigue syndrome (disorder) is now classified under supertype SCTID: 118940003 Disorder of nervous system (disorder) in the July 2018 release of the SNOMED CT International Edition.

This change will be incorporated into the next update of the U.S. Edition (in September 2018), the UK Edition (in October 2018) and other National Editions, as they release their next updates.

Download a copy of the full report

PDF: Statement on SNOMED CT and Chronic fatigue syndrome

SNOMED CT International Edition Release for July 2018 (v20180731) was published on the public SNOMED CT browser on July 31, 2018

Media:

GP system updated to reflect M.E. as neurological, Action for M.E., August 01, 2018

NHS to update classification system to reflect that M.E. is neurological disease, ME Association, August 06, 2018