Clinical epidemiology
Identification of Patients with Colon Ischemia in the Swedish ESPRESSO Cohort: A Validation Study
By Klinglöf H, Söderling J, Hedin CRH and 4 others.
Abstract
Background
Colon ischemia is the most common form of intestinal ischemia, yet case identification in epidemiological research remains challenging due to heterogeneous diagnostic criteria and absence of a specific International Classification of Diseases (ICD) code. The use of SNOMED (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine) for gastrointestinal biopsies and surgical specimens enables a unique possibility to identify colon ischemia cases.
Methods
In this validation study, 231 individuals with SNOMED code M54 (necrosis) and colorectal topography codes (T67-T68) were randomly selected from five Swedish regions. Medical charts were retrieved for 204 cases, where 143 contained sufficient information for evaluation. Cases were classified by clinical overall assessment and assigned an etiological group. Positive predictive values (PPVs) were calculated for overall colon ischemia based on histopathology alone and for etiological subsets where histopathology was combined with ICD codes.