Journal of fungi
The Past and Future of Fungal Diagnoses in Health Records: A Comparative Analysis and Harmonization of Mycoses ICD Codes
By Montoya MC, Esquivel BD, Hoffman MA and 2 others.
Abstract
Background
International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes are used in healthcare for documenting disease and billing, but also for research in epidemiological and translational studies for cohort identification and specimen selection. Periodic code revisions, while necessary, significantly differ in structure and descriptive content, preventing direct cross-version mapping while also complicating use in longitudinal research and coding accuracy during the transition to newer versions.
Methods
Mycoses codes within ICD-9, ICD-10, and ICD-11 were manually identified within fungal and non-fungal disease sections using systematic searches for fungal-associated text and eponymous diseases with confirmed fungal etiology. Code descriptions were analyzed to classify etiologic and clinical characteristics for harmonized match scoring. Code similarity was assessed using a heuristically weighted match-score algorithm incorporating classification variables with description-based text mining for clinically relevant semantic harmonization. Codes were categorized into twelve fungal groups (Aspergillus, Blastomyces, Candida, Coccidioides, Cryptococcus, Histoplasma, Mucorales, Paracoccidioides, Sporothrix, Other Fungus-specific Mycoses, Dermatomycoses, and General Mycoses). Bidirectional best-match mapping was performed within each fungal group and manually verified.