Current versions of LOINC and RELMA released June 27, 2014.
Highlights from our best LOINC release yet
New content
LOINC version 2.48 contains 73,889 terms, an increase of 774 since the December 2013 version. Approximately 1300 terms have been edited. A total of 2201 terms have been deprecated.
This release includes over 600 laboratory, 137 survey, and 16 clinical-related new terms.
Some of the new content highlights in this version:
- Over 300 chemistry-related codes for observations such as quantitative analysis of immunoglobulin light and heavy chains, porphyrin fractions in stool (SFr, SCnt), dimethyl acetals (DMAs) in fibroblasts and RBCs, and detection of soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 and placental growth factor in serum.
- Approximately 100 drug/toxicology codes
- Over 60 microbiology codes for tests detecting Influenza virus B lineage RNA, Neisseria meningitidis DNA, HPV DNA, West Nile Virus RNA, Hepatitis E virus RNA, and HIV 1+Hepatitis C virus RNA+Hepatitis B virus DNA, Chikungunya virus antibodies, Dengue virus IgG and IgM antibodies to Dengue virus, and gram positive bacteria, and more.
- New laboratory panels, including:
- HER2 panel (LOINC 74885-5)
- Immunoglobulin light and heavy chains panel (LOINC 74773-3)
- Chloride and sodium panel (LOINC 74993-7)
- Metanephrine and normetanephrine panel (LOINC 74831-9)
- Additional hydrogen breath test panels (LOINCs 74790-7, 74788-1,74789-9)
- Metabolic disorder therapy monitoring panel for newborn screening (LOINC 74874-9)
- Amino acids (SCnc, SRto) in urine panel (LOINC 74514-1)
- Dimethyl acetal in Fibroblasts and RBCs panels (LOINCs 74633-9, 74634-7)
- Chloride and sodium panel (LOINC 74993-7)
- Bacterial vaginosis DNA panel (LOINC 74635-4)
- Olanzapine panel (LOINC 75021-6)
- Gram positive blood culture panel (LOINC 74749-3)
- New veterinary codes related to testing for porcine epidemic diarrhea virus RNA as well as a body condition score for veterinary EHRs.
- Over 100 terms created for the following survey/assessments:
- AHRQ’s Healthcare Event Reporting Form (HERF), Patient Information Form (PIF), Summary of Initial Report (SIR), and Device or Medical/Surgical Supply forms (LOINCs 74725-3, 74502-6, 74501-8, 74495-3)
- CDC’s Congenital Syphilis Case Investigation and Report form (LOINC 75199-0)
- Norton Scale (LOINC 75243-6)
- Two new progress notes for specialties urology and neurology for clinical documents
- Additional clinical document type codes were reviewed and moved into the DOC.CLINRPT Class in order to be included in the LOINC Document Ontology File that is a separate download in the LOINC distribution.
Other edits contained in this release:
- Truncation of some Long Common Names from the Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale (EDDS) have been fixed.
- Continuing work to change property for ACnc/Ord terms from ACnc to Pr or Threshold
- Added Example and UCUM units to over 2,000 quantitative terms in the Clinical domain
New table in LOINC Table Changes database shows changes only to key fields
The LOINC changes file has been enhanced with a new table that highlights changes only to the key LOINC fields (the six parts of the fully specified name and the Class field). This table will make it easier to find these edits.
Just look for the “LOINC_UPDATES_BASIC_FIELDS_ONLY” table.
Notice of changes to the public LOINC data files for the June 2015 Release
TABLE: LOINC
Field Name: MOLAR_MASS
Formal Definition: Not actively maintained. Molecular weights: This field contains the molecular weights of some chemical moieties
Action: DELETE
Discussion: 1881 records have a value in this field. This field is sparsely populated and has not been actively maintained. For example, of 16 LOINCs with a component of Cortisol only 3 have this field populated.
Field Name: ACSSYM
Formal Definition: Chemical name synonyms, alternative name synonyms, and chemical formulae supplied with permission from the Chemical Abstract Society.
Action: DELETE
Discussion: 4054 records have a value in this field. This field is sparsely populated and has not been actively maintained. For example, only about half of the LOINCs with a component of ‘Lead’ have this field populated.
Field Name: BASE_NAME
Formal Definition: Chemical base name from CAS
Action: DELETE
Discussion: 31 records have value in this field. This field is sparsely populated and has not been actively maintained.
Field Name: NAACCR_ID
Formal Definition: Maps to North American Association of Central Cancer Registries Identification Number.
Action: Move data to SURVEY_QUEST_SRC and delete this field.
Discussion: 449 records have value in this field. We have alternate structures for storing other associated codes.
Field Name: CODE_TABLE
Formal Definition: Examples on CR0050 Cancer Registry.
Action: DELETE
Discussion: 79 records have value in this field. This appears to be redundant data. In all but 1 case, these are the same NAACCR item codes that are in the NAACCR_ID field but with ‘CR’ prepended.
Field Name: HL7_V2_DATATYPE
Formal Definition: HL7 version 2.x data type that is compatible with this LOINC code
Action: DELETE
Discussion: Data type information will now be stored in the LOINC.DataType field. The data currently in this field will be used to populate the new field.
Field Name: HL7_V3_DATATYPE
Formal Definition: HL7 version 3.0 data type that is compatible with this LOINC code
Action: DELETE
Discussion: Data type information will now be stored in the LOINC.DataType field. The data currently in this field will be used to populate the new field.
Field Name: CURATED_RANGE_AND_UNITS
Formal Definition:
Action: Rename to UnitsAndRange
Discussion: Removes redundancy in the field name.
Field Name: COMMENTS
Formal Definition:
Action: Rename to DefinitionDescription
Discussion: This field has long been our place for storing term definitions and descriptions. The label of “Comments” suggests an informal dialogue about the term, when in fact the contents are a curated narrative description.
FORMS TAB of panel spreadsheet:
Field Name: SkipLogicTargetAnswer
Formal Definition:
Action: DELETE
Discussion: The LForms project has clarified our thinking on skip logic. These fields are no longer appropriate for the data that we need to store.
Field Name: AnswerRequired
Formal Definition:
Action: DELETE
Discussion: To be replaced by AnswerCardinality.
Field Name: MaxNumberOfAnswers
Formal Definition:
Action: DELETE
Discussion: To be replaced by AnswerCardinality.
RELMA version 6.6
RELMA now sends new LOINC term requests directly to Regenstrief.
The biggest new feature we added in this release is the ability to send new term requests directly to Regenstrief. No more manually attaching Access database files to emails! You’ll need to use you loinc.org credentials to login. (If you’d prefer to email them, you can. Just look for the setting on the Submissions tab of the User Preferences screen).
The details pages are even better
- All of the details pages have been enhanced with hyperlinks. LOINC codes, LOINC part numbers, and LOINC answer numbers are displayed as hyperlinks that will take you to the details page for that content. Super awesome!
- Also, there’s a bit of an easter egg hidden for you on these detail pages. If you want to copy the LOINC number to the clipboard. Clicking on the LOINC code in the upper left of the screen will automatically highlight the whole code for you! Sweet stuff.
- The Answer string “LA” codes are now displayed in the list of answers in the answer search screen.
- PART status is now displayed on the PART detail pages.
- Linguistic variant information is now displayed on the PART detail pages.
Tap the wisdom of the crowd when mapping your terms to LOINC
Our community mapping repository is now open to all RELMA users. To see counts of how many other users have mapped to a particular LOINC code and the actual local names of those tests/variables and their units, just log into RELMA with your loinc.org credentials.
Learn more at https://loinc.org/community/mappings
Also, please consider contributing your local code to LOINC mappings back to the shared repository, either using RELMA itself or just sending them to us in a spreadsheet.
Language Translations
- Brand new for this release: French (BELGIUM)
- Also updated in this release:
- Chinese (CHINA)
- Russian (RUSSIAN FEDERATION)
- French (CANADA)
- Italian (ITALY)