Analysis of the semantic structures of medical reference languages: part 2. Analysis of the semantic power of MeSH, ICD and SNOMED.
Three medical reference languages, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED), were compared through an analysis of their structures. They were found to differ in the degrees of complexity and specificity of meaning that they could convey. This variation in semantic power has been correlated with their different functions.
D002965:Classification; D004194:Disease / Q000145:classification; D006801:Humans; D007256:Information Systems; D008523:MEDLARS; D008511:Medicine; D012660:Semantics; D013358:Subject Headings; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D014481:United States