LOINC® version 2.75 is available for download from the LOINC website and via the LOINC Terminology Service using HL7® FHIR®.
We are pleased to announce the release of LOINC version 2.75 that includes new, edited, and newly mapped concepts in Laboratory, Clinical, Survey, and other domains. We are committed to ensuring LOINC’s content is relevant and responsive to current and evolving healthcare and technology trends.
This release contains newly created content based on requests submitted by stakeholders from more than 100 countries. It also includes content updates resulting from internal maintenance projects such as the semi-quantitative project of the Laboratory Committee as well as updates resulting from our collaboration with SNOMED International that began in 2022. Some of the technical updates respond to the demand for machine readable content to support the current era of machine learning and artificial intelligence.
LOINC 2.75 highlights
Requests for content and technical updates are critical to the development and maintenance of LOINC. We collaborate extensively with stakeholders and standards development organizations. Highlights of innovative updates for this release include:
- 1,945 new concepts
- 1,469 Laboratory
- 405 Clinical
- 71 Surveys
Our collaboration with SNOMED International to enhance the machine readability of LOINC resulted in the following updates:
- 1,015 concepts were deprecated and recreated in the Allergy class to remove ambiguity and explicitly reflect Component “Antibody.IgE” as the component and “RAST” as theMethod attribute “RAST” in Radioallergosorbent test concepts. We also have a new Scale attribute “SemiQn” for Radioallergosorbent test concepts.
- 94 concepts (including new concepts) where the System “Respiratory” was updated to “Respiratory System Specimen” for clarity of expression.
- We anticipate other forthcoming changes in subsequent releases as the collaboration with SNOMED International continues.
Highlights from internal maintenance projects include:
- 4,150 laboratory concepts were updated as a result of the semi-quantitative review project of the Laboratory Committee. The committee recognized that updates were necessary because often laboratory and clinical observations begin as numerical values that are either non-linear or that have large enough random error that pure numerical (analyses, such as mean and standard deviation), are not useful. The updates respond to the need for mechanisms to safely avoid over-interpretation of semi-quantitative results without losing valuable information. A designation of “semiquantitative” provides a warning that the data should not be assumed to be true “linear” quantities. LOINC version 2.75 re-introduces the semi-quantitative (SemiQn) scale for more explicit representation of non-continuous measurement of numeric values. This new scale option has an impact on the PROPERTY attribute. Recent updates are reflected in the following property categories:
- Mass (mass content, mass concentration)
- Substance (substance concentration)
- Titer
- Percentile
- Number concentration range
- Score range
- Log molar concentration
- Relative density
Other updates that reflect the work of our committees and/or collaboration with stakeholders include:
- We created and finalized gender harmony content that reflects the collaboration of the Document Ontology committee with the HL7 Gender Harmony Initiative. These additions support health equity initiatives.
- Additional content was added to align with the USCDI Disability Status in the C-CDA.
- In collaboration with CMS, we completed 8 panels for the CMS: Minimum Data Set MDS 3.0 v1.18.11 to facilitate accurate and effective resident assessment practices in long-term care facilities.
Other updates in Laboratory LOINC include:
- Concepts to detect circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) for molecular residual disease (MRD), a new biomarker, to align with advancements in the field of pain management.
- New concepts to detect neoplastic clones associated with chromosome abnormalities seen in T-cell lymphomas.
- New panels such as I, ACTH heterophile Ab interference, synthetic glucocorticoid, MA2EC and MA2ES (Ma2 Antibody in CSF and Ma2 Antibody in Serum).
- Radiology concepts such as Beta-Amyloid 42/40 for bone density point of care screening (POC).
- Challenge related concepts for GGH (Pediatric Glucagon Stimulation for Growth Hormone), GSGHD (Glucagon Stimulation for Growth Hormone Deficiency), ITT (Insulin Tolerance [Glucose, Growth Hormone, Cortisol] and ASC2 (Arginine Stim/Cort).
- Over 130 new laboratory concepts in microbiology, serology, and drug toxicology.
Updates to Clinical LOINC feature:
- Over 400 new concepts were added to Clinical LOINC. Some examples include:
- Concepts to screen for risk of malnutrition, assess neonatal pain, and evaluate the polygenic risk score to measure for risk for disease based on genetic profile.
- More concepts were created and added to the Survey class of the Document Ontology domain to facilitate disseminating and implementing synoptic operative reports for cancer surgery.
We continue periodic internal maintenance on LOINC to ensure it remains relevant in meeting stakeholder needs. In this release, 4,844 concepts were reviewed, and edited (revised), 1,016 were deprecated. (List can be updated wait the final release)
Software changes and updates
With this release, we no longer provide the Microsoft Access version of the database. This Loinc.mdb file has outgrown its usefulness as Access wanes in popularity. The CSV versions of the database will continue to remain available.
We recently launched a new version of our forum, now known as the LOINC Community Forum. You can reach it at forum.loinc.org. This new forum uses open-source software called Discourse. Our goal with the new forum is to provide a simple and straightforward venue for questions and comments within the LOINC community.
The LOINC Hierarchy Browser (loinc.org/tree) has recently received an update. Now, users have the convenient option to export the trees or search results to a CSV file. This means that you can download the hierarchical structure of each tree in a CSV format.
Upcoming RELMA Updates
- We will be retiring our online RELMA search engine. You will be able to still use the local search engine within RELMA; however, you will need to make a configuration change when the service is shut down. We will provide detailed instructions on how to make this configuration change on our forum in advance of the retirement date. Subsequent releases of RELMA will no longer include the online search feature.
- The ability to create submissions from RELMA will be discontinued. We will be transitioning this function to our online submission form. The exact date of this change will be announced on the forum. If a user tries to submit a submission via RELMA after this date they will receive an error. Subsequent releases of RELMA will have the submission feature removed.
We routinely update and publish several statistics around user requests for new LOINC concepts. To reflect our current resources and methods more accurately, we will be changing how the median turnaround time for submissions is calculated. The new median turnaround time will cover a rolling 365 days rather than the past two LOINC release cycles plus current cycle. Once these adjustments are made, we will announce the change via the LOINC Community Forum.
You can read more about all changes in the LOINC Release Notes in the LOINC Knowledge Base.