Regenstrief Institute and the LOINC Commitee welcome requests for new LOINC® content (terms, codes, and/or associated material) and suggestions about edits for existing content within the LOINC® database. The Regenstrief Institute receives two kinds of requests for additions to LOINC:

1. The first kind of request deals with (a) an entirely new kind of measurement, e.g. DNA sequencing or (b) the use of LOINC codes in manners that have not been agreed upon by the LOINC committee. For example, the definition of terms to accommodate the organism 1, organism 2, etc., structures that are present in many laboratory databases.
2. Other requests are variations on observations that are already in the database. For example, we have a term for a particular test result with serum as the specimen (system) and a user requests an identical term for a specimen of gastric contents. Regenstrief tries to respond to these kinds of requests quickly.

Regenstrief will only be able to respond quickly to such requests if the requester provides us with clear information about the new terms. Before sending a request, make sure that you have, at a minimum, provided information about the component, property, timing aspect, system, scale and method. It is also very useful for us to know the units of measure and example results (answers) of the test/observation that is being requested. This information enables us to verify the property, scale, and method.

You have the option of either submitting a file produced solely by you or one generated on your behalf via the RELMA program. Regardless of which option you choose, your submission file must be sent to the Regenstrief Institute in one of three file formats

1. The preferred format (and the one that RELMA will produce on your behalf) is a Microsoft Access database (mdb)
   
2. The second format is a tab delimited ASCII file (txt)
3. The final format is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (xls)

Please see Appendix D of the LOINC Users' Guide for more information on these file formats and the process of submitting terms.

Downloads for LOINC Submissions

	Download the RELMA program The RELMA program can be used to create a LOINC submission file. Appendix B of the RELMA Manual describes the submission process.
	Download the LOINC submission database The submission database can be used to request terms to add to the LOINC database.