We struggle to undestand the difference between Respiratory tract and Airway in SNOMED CT: 321667001 |Respiratory tract structure (body structure)| and 89187006 |Airway structure (body structure)|.
Respiratory tract is a parent of Airway - and of Larynx/Trachea, among others. This doesn´t make much sense as Larynx and Trachea is a part of Airway, see for example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459258/
This has impliactions in other hierarchies: 275498002 |Respiratory tract infection (disorder)| is a concept, but not Airway infection. This makes even less sense, as we can see in the different translations: “luchtweginfectie” in the Dutch edition, “Atemwegsinfektion” in the Austrian, “luftvägsinfektion” in the Swedish (dailybuild) and “Infektion af luftvejene” in the Danish.
There are other similar observations, such as 79688008 |Respiratory obstruction (disorder)| (with the synonym “Embarrassed airway”!)> “luchtwegobstructie” (Dutch) and “obstrucción de la vía aérea” (Spanish).
On the other hand, there are concepts such as 397813008 |Airway trauma (disorder)|, but not “Respiratory tract trauma”
The issue of Respiratory system and Respiratory tract is discussed in the Editorial Guide (https://snomed.atlassian.net/wiki/display/DOCEG/Respiratory+System), but the issue of Airway is not mentioned.
If there are ontological reasons for distinguishing Respiratory tract and Airway, we would expect a corresponding distribution of concepts in the disorder hierarchy for infections, traumas, injuries, etc.
Yongsheng Gao
4. juli 2025 kl. 09:48
Hi @Monica Harry This is still in progress. A draft high-level respiratory system is located at https://snomed.atlassian.net/wiki/display/IAP/Respiratory+system+model±+draft. Further discussion and investigation are needed. Ole asked me to attend the Translation User Group meeting on 23rd Sept to discuss this and the other topic on fingers vs. digits of hand.
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Monica Harry**
3. juli 2025 kl. 19:27
@Yongsheng Gao just looking at this again; seems there is agreement about synonymy. Are you able to provide a status update for this please? thanks, Monica
Marjolaine Gagnon
23. april 2025 kl. 16:55
(redigert)
In almost all French (French Canada and other countries) clinical sources/references, “airways” and “respiratory tract” are considered synonyms, and are all translated by “voies respiratoires”, and sometimes by “voies aériennes” (a literal translation), or by “{*}{{*}}tractus respiratoire” (which is a literal translation of respiratory tract and which use seems more recent and less common in French-Canadian medical/clinical literature).
respiratory tract infection is translated as "airways infection/infection of airways" in FR CA
Ole Kristian Våge
22. april 2025 kl. 15:02
Yes, they are synonyms in Norwegian.
In Norwegian, the airways are defined in the National Medical Dictionary: “The airways include the nasal cavity, oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, trachea, the two main bronchi and their branches into progressively smaller bronchial divisions, and the respiratory bronchioles that terminate in the alveoli of the lungs.” (https://sml.snl.no/luftveiene).
Please note that disorders such as “respiratory tract infection”, “upper respiratory infection” and “lower respiratory infection” are named as “airway infection” (“luftveisinfeksjon”), “upper airway infection” (“øvre luftveisinfeksjon)”, “lower airway infection” (“nedre luftveisinfeksjon” in Norwegian, for example in the same dictionary (https://sml.snl.no/luftveisinfeksjoner).
Bilingual dicitionaries English-Norwegian also consider airway and respiratory tract as synonyms.
Maybe @Saswika Baidjoe, @Katarina Lindve, @Katarina Lindve@Marjolaine Gagnon@Maël Le Gall@Frank Geier would like to add more information from different languages.