Search Options
The Search tab allows you to search SNOMED CT for concept matches to Fully Specified Name (FSN) text patterns, concept and relationship SCTIDs, or SNOMED CT ECL expressions. On first opening the tab, a search query text box is presented with a prompt to enter at least three characters. This triggers a text search of SNOMED CT for matches by name or by SCTID. Two large buttons are presented below the search query box - the first is a toggle button for filtering results as Active Only | Inactive Only | Active and Inactive - see the Search Results section below for further details of its use; the second button toggles the search mode from Text Mode (the default setting on opening the Search tab) to ECL Mode. In ECL Mode, the query box adapts to receive an ECL expression, and an additional term filter box is presented which supports lexical filtering of the ECL expression match results. For both modes, the Active Only | Inactive Only | Active and Inactive toggle button remains available to act on the full results set. Note that ECL searches which traverse multiple hierarchies and ranges can take a few seconds to complete and present the results.
Search by name
This a standard text pattern match against concept Fully Specified Names (FSNs).
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If previously switched to ECL Mode, press Switch to Text Mode. |
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Enter at least three characters into the search query box. Type-ahead searching starts to present results as soon as 3 or more characters are entered (automatic type-ahead search is not triggered until a slight pause in normal typing). Wildcard characters can be used to elaborate the search query. Asterisk ( * ) matches all subsequent characters regardless of word length. Question mark ( ? ) matches a single character. |
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Entering more characters automatically updates the results set to match the entered text pattern. |
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A clear query X button will appear in the right upper corner of the query box once text is entered. Press this to clear the current query. Standard operating system keyboard select/cut/paste/delete key combinations can also be used to manipulate the query once entered. |
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Search by SCTID
This is a numeric exact match to a SNOMED CT concept SCTID; it can be useful for locating newly created concepts. Purely numeric search queries will try to match against SCTIDs, and return an error message if none are found. For example searching for 300 returns "Error performing search: [object Object]: Not Found: Concept with identifier '300' could not be found." To search for a numeric value in an FSN, SYN etc, put quotes around the number or add a wildcard * to the end of the query (eg "300" or 300*). The search will then find matches in text content (including partial matches, so "300" will match "300", "200-300", "300,000" etc.
| Steps | Reference |
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If previously switched to ECL Mode, press |
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Enter a numeric value corresponding to an SCTID into the search query box (no leading or trailing spaces). Cut and paste from another resource is often the easiest way to do this, but the value can simply be typed via the keyboard as for text searches. As for searching by name, once a numeric query is entered the clear query X button appears in the upper right corner of the query box, with the behaviour described above for searching by name. |
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For concept SCTIDs, the single concept matching the SCTID will be found if it exists. Note that unless the results filtering is not currently set to Active and Inactive, a valid search result may be hidden if set to the non-matching status filter. If no results are returned for a known good SCTID when showing Active Only or Inactive Only, then press the button to see the other status filters (eg 232971009 which is an inactive concept, needs the result filtering set to Inactive Only or Active and Inactive to see the search result). |
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| For description SCTIDs, the concept containing the description SCTID will be found if it exists. |
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| For relationship SCTIDs, both the source and target concepts for that relationship SCTID will be found if it exists. |
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Search by ECL Expression
For more complex searches, such as locating only concepts within particular ranges or located in particular hierarchies within SNOMED CT, the ECL Mode supports expressions (supporting ECL 1.1.1 from AP Version 2.1.0, ECL 1.3 from AP Version 2.9.0). Since ECL is a large topic the steps below illustrate only some basic examples - please see for further reading on more refined ECL expressions.
| Steps | Reference |
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When in Text Mode (default on opening Search tab), press |
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| Enter an ECL expression into the search query box. |
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| Press the Search button to the right of the query box, or press Enter on the keyboard. |
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After obtaining ECL expression search results, the results set can be refined by entering an additional term filter in the query box below the expression. For example the ECL expression >!* returns all concepts that are leaf nodes. By adding an additional term filter a particular set of matching leaf nodes can be found, such as all leaf nodes containing the word "limb" in their FSN. |
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Search Results
After using one of the above methods, a list of search results will be presented with concepts matching the search query/expression. The total number of concepts found is shown at the top of the results list. Results can be processed as illustrated in the steps below:
| Steps | Reference |
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Press |
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Press Inactive Only to exclude active concepts from the results list. |
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Press Active and Inactive to show the full results set. |
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| Scroll the results list to see currently displayed results when many matches are returned (for large results sets, only the first 100 are initially loaded in the list). |
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When more than 100 results are found, press Load Next 100 at the bottom of the list to add the next set of (up to) 100 results not currently listed. The loading is cumulative, in that the list expands each time to include the previous results shown. When all results are listed, the button changes to an End of Results label indicating that all matches are listed (and can be seen by scrolling up/down the list). |
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| View the definition status of a search result concept via the icon to the left of its name (FSN). Press the definition status button to open a pop-up box with detailed information about the concept, including Hierarchy (parent/child concepts), Descriptions and Relationships; an active concept also has an option to see its hierarchical location in a Taxonomy tab within the pop-up box. |
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| Press a search result name link to open the concept in the edit panel. |
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| When viewing inactive results, distinguish such concepts in the results list via their Inactive Concept status icon. |
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Press an active concept search result View in Taxonomy button to open the Taxonomy tab with focus set to the search result concept. |
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Press a search result Add to Saved List button to retain the concept for future retrieval via the Saved List tab. |
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Press a search result Clone this Concept button to create a new concept in the edit panel with the same terms and relationships. |
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