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The Description file holds descriptions that describe SNOMED CT concepts . A description is used to give meaning to a concept and provide well-understood and standard ways of referring to a concept .

description description active inactive description child of 900000000000443000 $$ Module $$ hierarchy concept description Identifier concept 138875005 $$ SNOMED CT Concept $$ hierarchy descriptions concepts description concept language description ISO language dialect description Synonym description child of 900000000000446008 $$ Description type $$ hierarchy description concept description child of 900000000000447004 $$ Case significance $$ hierarchy

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Table 10. Description file - Detailed Specification

Field

Data type

Immutable

Purpose

id

SCTID (data type)

Y

Uniquely identifies the

.

effectiveTime (field)

Time (data type)

N

Specifies the inclusive date at which the component version's state became the then current valid state of the component

active (field)

Boolean (data type)

N

Specifies whether the

's state was

or

from the nominal release date specified by the effectiveTime (field) .

moduleId (field)

SCTID (data type)

N

Identifies the

version's module. Set to a

of

Scg expression

ShowParts	id+term

900000000000443000|Module|

within the metadata

.

conceptId

SCTID (data type)

Y

Identifies the

to which this

belongs. Set to an

of a

in the

Scg expression

ShowParts	id+term

138875005|SNOMED CT Concept|

within the Concept file. Note that versions of

and

don't belong to each other. Which version of any given

is combined with which version of its owning

depends on the point in time at which they are accessed.

languageCode

String (data type)

Y

Specifies the

of the

text using the two character

-639-1 code. Note that this specifies a

level only, not a

or country code.

typeId (field)

SCTID (data type)

Y

Identifies whether the

is an FSN,

or other

type. This field is set to a

of

Scg expression

ShowParts	id+term

900000000000446008|Description type|

in the Metadata

.

term

String (data type)

N

The

version's text value, represented in UTF-8 encoding.

caseSignificanceId (field)

SCTID (data type)

N

Identifies the

enumeration value that represents the case significance of this

version. For example, the term may be completely case sensitive, case insensitive or initial letter case insensitive. This field will be set to a

of

Scg expression

ShowParts	id+term

900000000000447004|Case significance|

within the metadata

.

Only one description record with the same id field will be current at any point in time. The current record will be the one with the most recent effectiveTime (field) before or equal to the point in time under consideration.

If the active field of this record is false ('0'), then the description is inactive at that point in time. If the active field is true ('1'), then the description is associated with the concept identified by the conceptId field.

The conceptId field, the languageCode field and the typeId (field) field will not change between two rows with the same id, in other words they are immutable. Where a change is required to one of these fields, then the current row will be de-activated (by appending a row with the same id and the active field set to false) and a new row with a new id will be appended. Only limited changes may be made to the ' term ' field, as defined by editorial rules.

Each concept will have at least one active description with a typeId (field) of | Synonym | for a given languageCode (like "en"). Where a concept only has one active description with a typeId (field) of | Fully Specified Name | for a given language code, then that Description can be taken as the Fully Specified Name for that language and each of its dialects , and need not therefore be explicitly included in language reference sets for that language . Where a concept only has one active description with a typeId (field) of | Fully Specified Name | across all language codes within a release, then that Description can be taken as the Fully Specified Name for all languages and dialects , and need not therefore be explicitly included in any language reference sets in that release.

The Term term (field) field will be restricted as follows:

to an overall maximum length of 32Kb;
to a maximum length, configurable for each description type (as defined by the Description Type reference set member associated with that description type - see the " SNOMED CT Release Format 2 - Reference Set Specifications" document for more details);
The format of the term field (plain text, limited HTML, XHTML, DITA ) will also be configurable for each description type, using the same mechanism as above;
Control characters (including TABs, CRs and LFs) will not appear in |Plain text| and |Limited HTML| format types.

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