Cover not available
Article published In:
Terminology as a Societal Resource: Possibilities and Responsibilities in a Changing World
Edited by Nina Pilke, Niina Nissilä and Hans Landqvist
[Terminology 27:1] 2021
► pp. 10–34

Terminological cooperation in the biomedical field

| KU Leuven

This paper deals with collaborative terminological activities in the biomedical field. Efficient communication based on uniform language use is a prerequisite for safe and cost-efficient patient care. Terminological consistency and standardization are therefore central issues in healthcare with high societal relevance. The objectives of this contribution are (1) to show how actors from different disciplines and institutions are involved in the standardization of medical terminology and electronic terminology systems; (2) to describe how translation-oriented terminological principles affect the translation of the Systematic Nomenclature of Medicine – Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT). The challenges of this approach will be discussed and some suggestions for its further development will be made.

Keywords: clinical terminology, collaborative translation projects, concept systems, ontology, ontoterminology, SNOMED CT, standardization, theory of terminology
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Standardization in the biomedical field
    • 2.1Medical language and terminology standardization
    • 2.2Electronic medical communication and standardization
    • 2.3Semantic interoperability and cooperation with standardization organizations
  • 3.Conceptual networks in the biomedical field
    • 3.1Ontologies as representational frameworks
    • 3.2SNOMED CT
    • 3.3Formal concept definitions and natural language
    • 3.4SNOMED CT as applied terminology
  • 4.Translation of SNOMED CT: Methodology and challenges
    • 4.1Onomasiological approach
    • 4.2Collaborative translation and role distribution
    • 4.3Translation tools
    • 4.4Challenges of the translation approach
  • 5.Summary
  • Notes
  • References
  • Online sources
Published online: 5 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/term.00056.wer
References
Arp, Robert, Barry Smith, and Andrew D. Spear
2015 Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology. Cambridge, Massachusetts/London, England: MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ashrafi, Noushin, Jean-Pierre Kuilboer, and Tristan Stull
2018 “Semantic Interoperability in Healthcare: Challenges and Roadblocks.” In Proceedings of STPIS’18, ed. by Stewart Kowalski, Peter M. Bednar and Ilia Bider, 119–122. ([URL]). Accessed 8 November 2019.
Aussenac-Gilles, Nathalie, and Dagobert Soergel
2005 “Text analysis for ontology and terminology engineering.” In Applied Ontology 11: 35–46.Google Scholar
Beddies, Thomas, Eva Brinkschulte, Martin Brumme, Volker Hess, Ilona Marz, and Thomas Müller
(eds.) 2008 Medizinische Terminologie. Skript für das Praktikum der Medizinischen Terminologie. Berlin: Institut für Geschichte der Medizin, Charité – Universitätsmedizin. Accessed 10 November 2019.Google Scholar
Benson, Tim, and Grahame Grieve
2016 Principles of Health Interoperability. SNOMED CT, HL7 and FHIR. 31. London: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bhattacharyya, Subhra Bikash
2016 Introduction to SNOMED CT. Singapore: Springer Science and Business. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bourigault, Didier, and Nathalie Aussenac-Gilles
2003 “Construction d’ontologies à partir de texte.” In Actes de la 10ème conférence sur le Traitement Automatique des Langues Naturelles, ed. by ATALA, 27–47, Batz-sur-Mer, France: Association pour le Traitement Automatique des Langues.Google Scholar
Bowker, Lynn, and Jennifer Pearson
2002 Working with Spezialized Language: A Practical Guide to Using Corpora. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Buitelaar, Paul, Philipp Cimiano, and Bernardo Magnini
2005  Ontology-Learning from Text: Methods, Evaluation and Applications . Vol. 1231, Frontiers in Artifical Intelligence and Applications. Amsterdam: IOS Press.Google Scholar
Cabré Castellví, M. Teresa
2003 “Theories of Terminology. Their description, prescription and explanation”. Terminology 9(2): 163–199. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carvalho, Sara, Rute Costa, and Christophe Roche
2018 “The Role of Conceptual Relationships in the Drafting of Natural Language Definitions: an example from the Biomedical Domain.” In Globalex 2018 – Lexicography and WordNets, ed. by Ilan Kernerman and Simon Krek, 10–16. Paris: European Language Resources Association (ELRA).Google Scholar
Cimiano, Philipp, Johanna Völker, and Paul Buitelaar
2010 “Ontology Construction.” In Handbook of Natural Language Processing, ed. by Nitin Indurkhya and Fred J. Damerau, 577–604. Boca Raton/London/New York: CRC Press.Google Scholar
Coiera, Enrico
2015 Guide to Health Informatics. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dobrina, Claudia
2015 “Getting to the core of a terminological project.” In Handbook of Terminology, ed. by Hendrik Kockaert and Frieda Steurs, 180–199. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Durán Muñoz, Isabel
2016 “Producing frame–based definitions.” Terminology 22(2): 223–249. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
El-Sappagh, Shaker, Francesco Franda, Ali Farman, and Kyung–Sup Kwak
2018 “SNOMED CT standard ontology based on the ontology for general medical science.” Medical Informatics and Decision Making (BMC) 1–19. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Faber, Pamela, and Clara Inés López Rodriguez
2012 “Terminology and Specialized Language.” In A Cognitive Linguistics View of Terminology and Specialized Language, ed. by Pamela Faber, 9–31. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Felber, Helmut
1984 Terminology Manual. Paris: Unesco, Infoterm.Google Scholar
Freitas, Frederico, Stefan Schulz, and Eduardo C. Moraes
2009 “Survey of current terminologies and ontologies in biology and medicine.” RECIIS – Electronical Journal of Communication Information Innovationn in Health. 3(1): 7–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gruber, Thomas R.
1995 “Towards principles for the design of ontologies used for knowledge sharing.” International Journal of Human – Computer Studies 43(5–6): 907–928. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guarino, Nicola, Daniel Oberle, and Steffen Staab
2009 “What is an ontology?” In Handbook on Ontologies, ed. by Steffen Staab and Daniel Oberle, 1–17. Heidelberg/Berlin: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
IHTSDO
2012a Guidelines for Translation of SNOMED CT. ([URL]). Accessed 12 November 2019.
2012b Guidelines for Management of Translation of SNOMED CT. ([URL]). Accessed 12 November 2019.
INFOTERM – International Information Centre for Terminology
. Guidelines for Terminology Policies. CI.2005/WS/4. Paris: UNESCO 2005 ([URL]). Accessed 10 November 2019.
ISO 1087–1
2000 Terminology work – Vocabulary – Part 1: Theory and Application. Geneva: ISO.Google Scholar
ISO 704
2009 Terminology work – Principles and Methods. Geneva: ISO.Google Scholar
Ivanovic, Mirjana, and Zoran Budimac
2014 “An overview of ontologies and data resources in medical domains.” Expert Systems with Applications 41(11): 5158–5166. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karenberger, Axel
2015 Fachsprache Medizin im Schnellkurs. Stuttgart: Schattauer.Google Scholar
Karsch, Barbara
2015 “Terminology work and crowd sourcing. Coming to terms with the crowd.” In Handbook of Terminology, ed. by Hendrik Kockaert and Frieda Steurs, 291–303. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kerremans, Koen, Rita Temmerman, and José Tummers
2003 “Representing Multilingual and Culture–Specific Knowledge in a VAT Regulatory Ontology: Support from the Termontography Approach.” In Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2889, ed. by Robert Meersman and Zahir Tari, 662–674. Tübingen: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ma Yue, and Felix Distel
2013 “Learning Formal Definitions for Snomed CT from Text.” In Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. AIME 2013, ed. by Niels Peek, Roque L. Marín Morales, and Mor Peleg, 73–77. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 78851. Heidelberg, Berlin: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Madsen Nistrup, Bodil, and Hanne Erdman Thomsen
2009 “Terminological Concept Modeling and Conceptual Data Modeling.” International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies (IJMSO) 4 (4): 239–249. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 “Concept Modeling vs. Data Modeling in Practice.” In Handbook of Terminology, ed. by Hendrik Kockaert and Frieda Steurs, 250–275. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Madsen Nistrup, Bodil, Hanne Erdman Thomsen, and Carl Vikner
2002 “Computer Assisted Ontology Structuring.” In Terminology and Knowledge Engineering Conference 2002 – Proceedings, ed. by Alan Melby, 77–82. INRIA.Google Scholar
Montalt, Vincent, and Maria Gonzalez-Davies
2007 Medical Translation Step by Step: Learning by Drafting. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.Google Scholar
Nuopponen, Anita
2018 “Dimensions of Terminology Work.” Terminologija 251: 6–22.Google Scholar
Picht, Heribert, and Jennifer Draskau
1985 Terminology: An Introduction. 21 Vol. Surrey: University of Surrey, Department of Linguistics and International Studies.Google Scholar
Roche, Christophe
2015 “Ontological Definition.” In Handbook of Terminology, ed. by Hendrik Kockaert and Frieda Steurs, 128–152. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roche, Christophe, Marie Calberg-Challot, Luc Damas, and Philippe Rouard
2009 “Ontoterminology: A new paradigm for terminology.” In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development (KEOD), Funchal – Madeira Portugal, ed. by Jan L. G. Dietz, 321–326. INSTICC Press.Google Scholar
Roche, Christophe, Rute Costa, Sara Carvalho, and Bruno Almeida
2019 “Knowledge–based terminological e–dictionaries. The EndoTerm and al–Andalus Pottery projects.” Terminology 25(2): 259–290. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sadegh-Zadeh, Kazem
2015 Handbook of Analytic Philosophy of Medicine. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sakki, Hanna E. A., Naomi J. Dale, Jenefer Sargent, Teresa Perez-Roche, and Richard Bowman
2018 “Is there consensus in defining childhood cerebral visual impairment? A systematic review of terminology and definitions.” British Journal of Ophthalmology 102 (4): 424–432. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Santos, Claudia, and Rute Costa
2015 “Domain Specifity.” In Handbook of Terminology, Vol. 21, ed. by Hendrik Kockaert and Frieda Steurs, 153–179. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schulz, Stefan
2011 “Wozu benötigen wir standardisierte Terminologien wie SNOMED CT?” Swiss Medical Informatics 27–32.Google Scholar
Schulz, Stefan, Johannes Bernhardt-Melischniga, Markus Kreuzthalera, Philipp Daumkeb, and Martin Boeker
2013 “Machine vs. Human Translation of SNOMED CT terms.” Studies in Health Technology and Informatics 1921: 581–584.Google Scholar
Seppälä, Selja
2007 “La définition en terminologie: typologies et critères définitoires.” In Terminologie and Ontologies; Théories et Applications: Actes de la première conférence TOTh, Annecy, France: 23–43. ([URL]). Accessed 15 November 2019.
Smith, Barry
2003 “Ontology.” In Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information, ed. by Luciano Floridi, 155–166. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Smith, Barry, Werner Ceusters, and Rita Temmerman
2005 “Wüsteria.” Studies in Health Technology and Informatics (116): 647–652. Amsterdam: IOS Press.Google Scholar
Spackman, Kent A., and Guillermo Reynoso
2004 “Examining SNOMED from the perspective of formal ontological principles: Some preliminary analysis and observations.” In Proceedings of the KR 2004 Workshop on Formal Biomedical Knowledge Representation, ed. by Udo Hahn, 72–80. BC Canada: Whistler.Google Scholar
Stammberger, Heinz, Werner Hosemann, and Wolfgang Draf
1997 “Anatomische Terminologie und Nomenklatur für die Nasennebenhöhlenchirurgie.” Laryngo–Rhino–Otologie 76 (7): 435–449. Stuttgart: Thieme. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sunyaev, Ali, Sebastian Dünnebeil, Christian Mauro, Jan-Marco Leimeister, and Helmut Krcmar
2010 IT-Standards im Gesundheitswesen: Überblick und Entwicklungsperspektiven mit der Einführung Service-Orientierter Architektur. Vol. 1, in INFORMATIK 2010. Service Science – Neue Perspektiven für die Informatik, ed. by Klaus-Peter Fähnrich and Bogdan Franczyk, 223–228. Bonn: Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. ([URL]). Accessed 20 November 2019.
Temmerman, Rita
2000 Towards New Ways of Terminology Description: The Sociocognitive Approach. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thun, Sylvia
2015 “Digitalisierte Medizin. Die Zukunft der Medizin mit IT–Standards und einer weltweit gültigen Medizinfachsprach.” Informatik Spektrum 381: 22–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wenger, Etienne, and Beverly Wenger-Trayner
2015 “Communities of Practice: A Brief Introduction.” ([URL]). Accessed 4 July 2020.
Wermuth, Maria-Cornelia, and Heidi Verplaetse
2018 “Medical terminology in the Western world.” In Handbook of Terminology. Terminology in the Arab world, ed. by Abied Alsulaiman and Ahmed Allaithy, 83–108. Amsterdam/New York: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Wyatt, Jeremy C., and Joseph L. Y. Liu
2002 “Basic concepts in medical informatics.” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 56(11): 808–812. DOI logoGoogle Scholar

Online sources

IHTSDO
2018a SNOMED CT Editorial Guide. [URL]. Accessed 12 November 2019.
2018b SNOMED CT Starter Guide. [URL]. Accessed 12 November 2019.