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A concept created in an extension must conform to the logical design of SNOMED CT concepts. An overview of the logical model is provided in 

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. This means that every concept created in an extension must have:

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Additional defining relationships may include

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 relationships and attribute relationships. When specifying attribute relations for an extension concept it is important to ensure compliance with the SNOMED CT concept model. The concept model specifies the attributes that can be applied to particular types of concepts and it specifies the permitted values for each of these attributes. There are also additional rules on the cardinality and grouping of particular types of relationships. Please see the  SNOMED CT Editorial Guide and the  SNOMED CT Machine Readable Concept Model for details on the concept model rules. 


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Logical Model Overview

Retaining Referential Integrity

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If an extension producer makes any changes or additions within their extension, which result in modification of the transitive closure of the International Edition , they must report this to SNOMED International. This will allow the issue that necessitated the change to be assessed and where appropriate resolved in the Internation Edition.

Examples

The T he following 3 examples illustrate the impact of adding extension concepts as leaf concepts or intermediate concepts (after classification). The impact is considered in terms of how each addition effects subsumption testing  using an example international concept 'G'.  

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Example 1 - Primitive Extension Concept as a Leaf Concept


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Impact on hierarchy A primitive extension concept, which is created as a leaf concept, must always be a subtype of an international edition concept, and will not be classified as a supertype of an international concept.
Impact on subsumption

The addition of this type of content does not impact subsumption testing of concepts in the international edition, because it will remain distal in the hierarchy to all International content after classification. 
In this case, the transitive closure of the International Edition will stay the same, except for the addition of the new inferred

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relationship associated with the concept from the extension.


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Example 2 - Extension Concept as an Intermediate Concept (No impact on subsumption)


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Impact on hierarchy

The definition of a concept in an extension module may result in it being classified as an intermediate concept in the SNOMED CT polyhierarchy, as illustrated in the diagram above.

This scenario results in the creation of two new inferred

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relationships in the extension, i.e. the relationships G | is a | X and X | is a | E. The inferred relationship G | is a | E (green dotted line), which is present in the international edition, becomes redundant when classified together with the extension (therefore marked grey in the diagram).

Impact on subsumption

This type of intermediate extension concept does not change the results of subsumption testing between international concepts. It does, however, have an impact on which relationships from the international edition are non-redundant in the extension edition. In this example, the inferred relationship G |is a| E becomes redundant when combined with the inferred relationships from the extension.

Extension producers can handle this redundancy by:


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Example 3 - Extension Concept as an Intermediate Concept (Impact on subsumption)


Illustration

Impact on hierarchy

The definition of a concept in an extension module may result in it being classified as an intermediate concept in the SNOMED CT polyhierarchy, as illustrated in the diagram above.

This scenario results in the creation of three new inferred

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relationships in the extension, i.e. the relationships G | is a | X and X | is a | D and X | is a | E. The inferred relationshipG | is a | E (green dotted line), which is present in the international edition, becomes redundant when combined with the inferred relationships from the extension. Furthermore, the definition of the extension concept X results in a modification of the definition of the international concept G, as G is now a subtype of the international concept D.

Impact on subsumption

This type of intermediate extension concept may change the results of subsumption testing for particular international concepts, when used within the local edition. Extension producers should therefore exercise extreme caution when introducing this type of concept addition.

When using the International Edition on its own, the concept G will not be treated as a subtype of the concept D. However, users of this example extension edition will see the international concept G as a subtype of the international concept D. This means that queries over international concepts stored in clinical data will lead to different results, depending on which edition is used. Therefore, intermediate concepts of this type may have serious consequences on the comparability and interoperability across SNOEMD CT Editions.

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