Special Workgroups

Document Ontology

The LOINC Document Ontology provides the framework for displaying clinical documents in an organized, logical way as well as allowing for efficient data retrieval using the structured document properties. This Workgroup will review new Document Ontology axis value proposals from various submitters as well as discuss any LOINC modeling questions that arise related to this framework.

This workgroup has been migrated to a subcommittee of the Clinical LOINC Committee.

Cell Marker Naming

Currently LOINC includes more than 500 terms for cell markers that have a denominator of "100 cells" without specifying the type of cell or cell marker(s) they represent. These terms are ambiguous because the results could have different meanings depending on what types of cells are used for gating (e.g., leukocytes versus lymphocytes). The task for this Workgroup is to review the existing concepts and develop a recommendation for how to disambiguate these terms.

High-Sensitivity Troponin

The FDA recently approved the first "high-sensitivity troponin" assay for use in the U.S., and we have received a few requests for LOINC codes from manufacturers of these tests. High-sensitivity troponin tests detect significantly lower levels of troponin than conventional assays, but they vary in their limits of detection by more than 100-fold across manufacturers (e.g., 10 ng/L versus 0.1 ng/L). Current guidelines (e.g., European Society for Cardiology) recommend using manufacturer assay-specific cutoffs when interpreting the results.

Existing LOINC codes have Methods such as "Detection limit less than..." and "High sensitivity", but neither of these by itself provides enough information unless we create "Detection limit" codes with exact assay-specific limits, which would not be consistent with our current convention, which is to have different detection limit Methods to represent 10-fold differences, but not the exact assay-specific limit.

The task for this Workgroup is to review the key points of the high-sensitivity troponin assays and published guidelines about how to report and interpret their results, and develop a recommendation for how best to model these terms in LOINC.

Recommendations made at December 2017 Committee Meeting.

LOINC Better Names

LOINC users lack guidance on what observation name to use when storing and exchanging data when systems cannot conform to the recommended guidance from HL7 and LOINC. The task for this Workgroup is to develop a proposal that includes recommendations and a potential solution for an alternate name when none of the existing names in LOINC are suitable.

Recommendations made at December 2017 Committee Meeting.

System for Genetic Testing

The purpose of the special topics workgroup on the LOINC system for genetic testing is to develop a proposal regarding the level of granularity necessary in the System part of LOINC codes in different domains of genetic testing, including germline versus somatic, in order to clarify the usage of existing codes and develop guidelines for determining whether new codes are necessary going forward.

Recommendations made at June 2017 Committee Meeting.

Defining a list of LOINC Systems for Microbiology

The purpose of the special topics workgroup on the LOINC System for Microbiology terms is to review the spectrum of Systems used in LOINC Microbiology terms and to develop a proposal for a defined list of allowable System values for new terms. The workgroup will take into consideration the level of granularity needed in different domains, such as hospital laboratories, reference laboratories, and public health, the issue of specimen type versus specimen source, and existing ontologies for laboratory specimens.