Animal dander - Request for input from Allergy CRG

The proposal seems generally reasonable.

A few value sets in NLM's Value Set Authority Center refer to Allergy to animal x dander (finding) concepts and will be directly affected if we do inactivation/creation rather than modification (which I can understand for editorial reasons).

I am wondering whether procedure concepts also referring to "animal x dander" remain appropriate or would need to be refactored similarly to the corresponding Allergy concepts – they could be similarly genericized (e.g., Cat allergen  specific immunoglobulin E antibody measurement). Just a thought.

• https://www.thermofisher.com/phadia/wo/en/product-catalog.html?articleNumber=14-4109-01&region=AU
• https://www.thermofisher.com/phadia/wo/en/product-catalog.html?articleNumber=14-5240-01&region=AU
• https://www.thermofisher.com/phadia/wo/en/product-catalog.html?articleNumber=14-4905-01&region=AU

There are also tests for urine, serum, epithelium individually and combinations of

• https://www.thermofisher.com/phadia/wo/en/product-catalog.html?articleNumber=14-4326-01&region=AU

Otherwise, I think the change is reasonable for Clinical Findings. It's consistent to how 232350006|House dust mite allergy| is modelled.

Presumably, this doesn't just apply to dander but all the 'animal materials', ie. feathers.
Will this logic/pattern apply to reactions also? i.e. <<418448002|Allergic reaction caused by animal (disorder)| (although there's limited content here at the moment).

Will this pattern also be extended to plants? pollens/seed

Could just use even general substances like 'dog material substance' (Subtsance from dog)

Are the FSN and PT in the example correct?

In the example if the PT is | Allergy to horse | the FSN would be | Allergy to horse protein |, but can you talk about at ‘horse protein’? This sounds especially strange if this statement in the Summary is true: “In addition, the same allergenic protein may be found in several different sources”. I suppose this means that the same allergenic protein can be found in e.g. a zebra and so it would not be a ‘horse protein’ only.

I am thinking that maybe the FSN should have been | Allergy to Animal protein x |, but this would not match the PT | Allergy to horse | either.

I am not an allergist, but a terminologist, so perhaps I just do not understand this subject. Perhaps an example with an actual case would be helpful? /Camilla

I agree with Camilla's second paragraph there and was not sure how to replicate a simple example that would make sense for the FSN: Allergy to cat dander (finding) would become: Allergy to cat protein (finding). 

I'm updating my comment, since I have received one from a key implementer in Canada: 

It is likely that the “allergy to x dander” concepts have been interpreted as “allergy to x” and captured in various patient information systems.  To have these “allergy to x dander” concepts inactivated may pose a problem for these systems.  Data remediation is most often not done, it is just too expensive and time consuming.  The new concepts could be used on a go-forward basis, but then any queries would need to be modified to search for the new concept OR “allergy to x dander” (and new queries would need to remember to do that).  I know it is bad practice to redefine concepts (e.g. keep the same concept code, but change the description to “allergy to x”), but given the widespread capture of allergy information in patient information systems, it may be the lesser of two evils in this case.