Revise content with “serology” or “serologic” in FSN

Briefing Note Purpose

The purpose of this briefing note is to notify the community of work that will be undertaken to address the ‘artf222817-Review concepts: Serology’ content tracker (https://projects.jira.snomed.org/browse/IHTSDO-862). The work will include revising and/or inactivating existing content that includes “serologic” or “serology” in the FSN as this is out of alignment with the editorial guidelines.

Date created 27 May 2026
Action For Information Only
Status open

20260525 BN Serology v1.0.pdf (144.8 KB)

BN acknowledged and appears to be in good order.

U.S. NRC notes two concepts that will need to be updated to align with this work. US CRS request has been created to track work for the two concepts in our extension.

Adding comments for Riki Merrick, Association of Public Health Laboratories.

Here are my thoughts:

From the discussion on the LabMCoP call on 6/25: https://aphlinformatics.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/LMCOPL/pages/5097848878/2026-06-25+LabMCoP+Meeting+Notes we were wondering if by “serology” they mean the measurement of antibody levels = appropriate for the immunity determination concepts or if they mean the grouping of methods like IA, IF, Chemiluminescence etc.

For the immunity related concepts I like this approach:

Finding of specific serum antibody level (finding)

                         Serum antibody to X absent (finding) (syn. Seronegative for X?)

                         Serum antibody to X present (finding) (syn. Seropositive for X?)

Serum antibody to X present at level expected to confer immunity (finding) (syn. Humoral immunity to X?) – I prefer this over the “Organism X immune determined by antibody measurement”

Insufficient serum antibody to X present to confer immunity (finding) as the opposite (non-immune statements)

I agree that the term “serology” should be retained in a synonym

For Procedure and Observable Entity concepts:

adding that the serologic test is against antibodies seems appropriate, if we can be sure that’s what was meant when the term was requested – it removes ambiguity

I would prefer Organism X immune status determination by antibody titer measurement over just antibody measurement, but again support retaining synonym of serology for searching purposes

I would prefer to NOT have any procedure concepts for in-vitro testing – could these be techniques used for the definition of the Observable Entities or retired if there are equivalent Observable Entity concepts for them?

This may be too late, but wanted to send you my thoughts – they were also inspired by the attached document (unsure where I found that one)

Riki