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

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18 | <strong>SNOMED</strong> CT <strong>Release</strong> <strong>Format</strong> 1 (<strong>RF1</strong>) <strong>Guide</strong> July 2012<br />

Figure 7: Illustration of Defining Relationships<br />

2.1.1.4. Common Features of Components<br />

This section describes common features of all <strong>SNOMED</strong> CT Components including identification and history<br />

management.<br />

2.1.1.4.1. Component features - History<br />

The content of <strong>SNOMED</strong> CT evolves with each release. The types of changes made include new Concepts,<br />

new Descriptions, new Relationships between Concepts, new Cross Maps, and new Subsets, as well as<br />

updates and retirement of any of these components. Drivers of these changes include changes in understanding<br />

of health and disease processes; introduction of new drugs, investigations, therapies and procedures; and<br />

new threats to health, as well as proposals and work provided by <strong>SNOMED</strong> CT users.<br />

Once released, the unique Identifiers of <strong>SNOMED</strong> CT components are persistent, and their Identifiers are<br />

not reused.<br />

Concepts and Descriptions continue to be distributed even when they are no longer recommended for active<br />

use. This allows a current release to be used to interpret data entered using an earlier release. The<br />

ConceptStatus or DescriptionStatus fields are used to indicate the reason for inactivating a component.These<br />

reasons include errors, duplication of another component and ambiguity of meaning. Some <strong>SNOMED</strong> CT<br />

Concepts represent classification concepts that have imprecise and potentially changeable meanings. These<br />

are marked with the ConceptStatus"limited" and were considered active until the January 2010 release of<br />

<strong>SNOMED</strong> CT. All Limited (ConceptStatus = 6) concepts are now considered to be inactive. 2<br />

2 Some Concepts derived from classifications such as ICD-10 include the abbreviations NOS (not otherwise<br />

specified) or NEC (not elsewhere classified). These are only valid in respect of a particular classification and<br />

change in their meaning if additional precisely defined codes are added to that part of the classification.<br />

© 2002-2012 International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation CVR #: 30363434

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