documentation:cdm:concept

CONCEPT_SYNONYM table

THIS IS OUTDATED. All documentation is now on the github wiki. Please refer there or to the CDM working group for more information

The CONCEPT_SYNONYM table is used to store alternate names and descriptions for Concepts.

Field	Required	Type	Description
concept_id	Yes	Integer	A foreign key to the Concept in the CONCEPT table.
concept_synonym_name	Yes	varchar(1000)	The alternative name for the Concept.
language_concept_id	Yes	integer	A foreign key to a Concept representing the language.

The concept_name field contains a valid Synonym of a concept, including the description in the concept_name itself. I.e. each Concept has at least one Synonym in the CONCEPT_SYNONYM table. As an example, for a SNOMED-CT Concept, if the fully specified name is stored as the concept_name of the CONCEPT table, then the Preferred Term and Synonyms associated with the Concept are stored in the CONCEPT_SYNONYM table.
Only Synonyms that are active and current are stored in the CONCEPT_SYNONYM table. Tracking synonym/description history and mapping of obsolete synonyms to current Concepts/Synonyms is out of scope for the Standard Vocabularies.
Currently, only English Synonyms are included.