SNOMED CT® Release Format 1 (RF1) Guide - ihtsdo

146 | SNOMED CT Release Format 1 (RF1) Guide July 2012
• An inactive"limited" Concept (ConceptStatus = 6) has valid usable Descriptions but these are also marked
"limited" (DescriptionStatus = 6).
3.2.9.2.2.2. ConceptId
Table 74: -
Descriptions Table
Data Field
ConceptId
Field Type
SCTID
Permitted characters
Digits 0 to 9 only
Length
6 to 18
The unique SNOMED CT Identifier of the clinical concept to which this Description applies.
Note:
This field provides the association between the Descriptions and Concepts tables.
3.2.9.2.2.3. Term
Table 75: -
Descriptions Table
Data Field
Term
Field Type
String
The text of a Term used to describe the associated Concept.
Note:
Permitted characters
Any (except LF, CR and
TAB)
Length
1 to 255
The term may be the FullySpecifiedName, the Preferred Term or a synonymous term for the associated
concept. The DescriptionType field indicates the type of term. The Preferred Term is not the same as
the Fully Specified Name. The Preferred Term expresses the concept accurately using language that a
clinician would expect to find in a clinical record. In order to remove or reduce any possible ambiguity
the Fully Specified Name may use phraseology that is stylized and unfamiliar.
The Term may be one or more languages or dialects. The Descriptions applicable to each language and/or
dialect are indicated by inclusion in Language Subsets distributed with the core tables.
The limitation in the length of this field is 255 bytes. All ASCII characters in the range32 to 127 can be encoded
in a single byte using UTF-8. However, accented and special characters require two or three byte encoding.
Therefore, the maximum length for a Term that contains these characters is less than 255 characters.
The FullySpecifiedName is also present in the Concepts Table. It is included in the Descriptions Table to
allow language and dialect variations to be represented.
© 2002-2012 International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation CVR #: 30363434