Ole Kristian Våge
6. juni 2025 kl. 14:19
(redigert)
The most voted issue from the Translation User Group is the challenges of translating digits of hand, fingers and thumb.
The challenge is described in https://snomed.atlassian.net/wiki/display/TRANSLATIONUSERGROUP/Digit+of+hand
The challenge is not only relevant for translating into Norwegian, but also Danish, Swedish, Dutch, French and German.
The strategy we have adopted in Norwegian is:
125685002 |Digit of hand structure (body structure)| = finger
7569003 |Finger structure (body structure)| = annen finger enn tommel ("other finger than thumb)
76505004 |Thumb structure (body structure)| = tommel (“thumb”)
However, our experience is that this is quite unfortunate as SNOMED CT is employed as a interface terminology in several languages. Having “other finger than thumb” is quite alienating in our language.
Another approach would be to omit translating 7569003 |Finger structure (body structure)|.
But then 125685002 |Digit of hand structure (body structure)| has to be introduced as a grouper consistently in the other hierarchies. And it might not solve the challenge that some countries have of not being able to omit translating single concepts due to legal requierements (France+?),
Are there other possible solutions? Are there structural changes that would be possible in the ontology? The justification for separating thumb and finger is the lack of a middle phalanx in the thumb, which is relevant in many contexts, but not all.
Louise Bie
10. juni 2025 kl. 11:59
In the Danish NRC we strongly agree that the translation to “other finger than thumb” is alienating and odd in our language.
Furthermore we find it problematic that concepts in other hierarchies. e.g. the finding (incl. diagnosis) and procedure hierarchies, that are modelled with concepts from the “finger” or “thumb” body structure hierarchy are not logically structured in the ontology, according to a common Danish understanding that the thumb is a finger and therefore the FSN of every concept containing “finger” is not unambiguos in Danish.
There is therefore a high risk that Danish users and implementers of SNOMED CT will not understand the structure and get wrong search results, or even worse not implement correctly e.g. when using the terminology as a reference terminology.
Thus, we suggest that the hierarchical structure and FSN and Preferred Term are changed as follows:
Hand → finger > finger 1, finger 2, finger 3…
where finger 1 is the thumb.
Ole Kristian Våge
10. juni 2025 kl. 13:44
From TUG meeting:
1 This issue is very challenging for several countries. The phrase “other finger than thumb” will also create long strings in other hierarchies, for example in procedures, which can be hard to present and display in the interface of EHRs.
2 What is the clinical justification for this hierarchy structure?
3 There are three possible ways ahead: A) No changes (which will not resolve the challenges described above) B) Introduce ‘digit of hand’ in other hierarchies (see for example 283250003 |Glass in hand (disorder)| and 125599006 |Injury of hand (disorder)|). C) Rearrange the hiearchy structure, for example as suggested by @Louise Bie above.
4 We would like to invite @Yongsheng Gao for a discussion in a future TUG meeting
Ole Kristian Våge
10. juni 2025 kl. 15:05
A continuation of @Louise Bie s proposal is this:
Digit of hand structure would correspond to what is “finger” in several languages/countries. The disadvantage of this is that there is no concept which would match the meaning of “finger” in English.
Pedro Díaz Lammertyn
11. juni 2025 kl. 11:24
Which is only needed in English. The question is to what extent are these groupers useful in English-speaking countries, and whether Digit of hand concepts wouldn’t suffice.