AI is quicker and more accurate than pathologists at SNOMED coding pathology reports

Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms (SNOMED) coding is widely used in medicine to facilitate the analysis of patterns of disease. 1 In the UK, cellular pathologists typically give a topography SNOMED code (T-code) and a morphology code (M-code) when reporting cases. In England, SNOMED T and M-codes are mandatory for all histopathology reports with a cancer diagnosis. Other SNOMED codes, including procedure codes (P-codes), are also used by cellular pathologists, although less often. The current SNOMED version is SNOMED-CT but many cellular pathology departments in the UK are still using legacy versions, particularly SNOMED 3.5, as their laboratory information systems do not support SNOMED-CT. SNOMED-CT codes are longer than SNOMED 3.5 codes, and this can cause field character limit conflicts in older software.