LOINC version 2.72 is available for download from the LOINC website.
Informed by tracking health care trends, evaluating concept requests, and listening to guidance from our community, this release contains new and edited concepts in Laboratory, Clinical, Survey and other domains. It also includes a newly streamlined release file structure for more efficient download and use. Some highlights include
- 1633 new concepts
- 574 Laboratory
- 577 Clinical
- 482 Surveys
- 575 updated concepts
- 399 Laboratory
- 189 Clinical
- 75 Surveys
You can read more about other changes in the LOINC release notes in the Knowledge Base.
In June 2021, we announced the new LOINC release schedule. Release 2.72 is our first February release and the first release of 2022. With this new schedule, you can expect the next release in August 2022.
Release highlights
Release 2.72 reflects our understanding of health care trends, the importance of collaboration and delivers on our commitment to support information exchange and semantic interoperability. This release contains new content related to the pandemic including SARS-CoV-2 Spike specific IgG and IgM, concepts to distinguish methods for determining variance and lineage, and concepts to report protein-specific antibody testing, as well as T-cell mediated immunity testing for SARS-CoV-2.
LOINC worked with the HL7® Gender Harmony Project to develop new concepts (in trial status pending HL7 final guidance) to align with industry equity and inclusion trends. Other healthcare trends influencing new concept creation for this release are cancer detection (multigene detection of various cancers from patient cell-free plasma), transplant rejection (prediction based on cell-free donor DNA in plasma transplant recipients for cardiac, lung, and kidney), and AI-based image analysis (to support computer-assisted microscopy based on automated image analysis).
More concepts were created and added to the survey class. These surveys are modeled either for research purposes, such as the Phen-X COVID-19 Protocol Library which assesses socioeconomic and educational impact, health, and knowledge around COVID; or to support initiatives for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that assess post-acute care quality reporting. Additional content created supports surveys for pain scale, back pain, depression, orthopedic scoring scale, and patient-reported outcomes in LASIK procedures related to ophthalmology.
Clinical guidelines translate evidence into best practice and are a key metric of improving care. Working with the National Kidney Foundation and the American Society of Nephrology, we added LOINC concepts to represent the updated equations to calculate GFR without a race-based variable. These new concepts are in accordance with the revised clinical guidelines and are a significant contribution in supporting efforts to diagnose kidney disease.
Release 2.72 also includes new concepts in Clinical LOINC to model pacemaker variables and to monitor glucose continuously in the interstitial fluid in diabetic patients. In neurology, new concepts were created in relation to nerve conduction studies, and in ophthalmology to support the National Eye Institute. In response to requests from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we also added new content for testing specialized microorganisms. Other additions to Clinical LOINC include concept requests from the Japan Ophthalmic Instrument Association reporting on phoropter measures to support FHIR-based autopsy reporting in pathology. We also included concepts to support reporting peritoneal disease parameters.
We continue to expand our international reach with the addition of a Polish translation of LOINC and a Mexican dialect translation of Spanish.
In addition to creating new concepts and supporting national and international initiatives, the LOINC database goes through periodic internal maintenance. In this release for example, “Study” concepts were remodeled to allow their use as order codes.
This is the first release of LOINC that uses our new streamlined release file structure. This streamlined structure is designed to simplify the release and to make it easier for users to access all of the necessary files. The LOINC table and accessory files are included in a single archive, and RELMA is provided as a separate download file.