Appendix A: SNOMED codes for primary diagnoses

The following guide shows all the registerable diseases by SNOMED code. Further guidance is available from your local National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) office.

All conditions represented by all versions of SNOMED morphology codes (prior to CT) beginning M8 and M9 are registerable if the last digit of the code is in the range 1 to 9.

Codes ending in a zero (0=benign) are not registerable unless the corresponding SNOMED topography code is shown in table A1:

The following codes not beginning with M8 or M9 are registerable and should also be sent:

The WHO classification of tumours now considers keratoacanthoma a sub-type of squamous cell carcinoma, so the morphology code for keratoacanthoma (M72860) has been added to the list of morphologies to be included in the submission.

Versions of SNOMED prior to SNOMED CT ceased to be licenced by The International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO) after April 2017, other than for historical content.

All Trusts are therefore advised to report all SNOMED Topography and Histology from April 2017 in CT only.

Unfortunately, there is no simple rule (like M8* etc) to identify registerable diseases using SNOMED CT codes. The codes used must therefore be compared to explicit lists of registerable codes.

View the explicit lists as a subset for SNOMED CT  (opens in new window) from the TRUD pages on the NHS digital website (registration is required). 

The lists of registerable code are updated when SNOMED CT is updated (usually every 6 months).

The subset contains 6 clusters:

1. CLUSTER 1A Malignant diagnosis
2. CLUSTER 1B In situ diagnosis
3. CLUSTER 1C Uncertain diagnosis
4. CLUSTER 1D CNS neoplasms diagnosis
5. CLUSTER 2 Benign neoplasms diagnosis
6. CLUSTER 3 Anatomic structures of the Central Nervous system diagnosis

Trusts should submit cases to NDRS if the pathology report has been coded with a 'SNOMED CT Concept ID' from CLUSTER 1A, 1B, 1C or 1D. CLUSTER 1A, 1B and 1C code all malignant, in situ and uncertain behaviour tumours. Cluster 1D captures all CNS neoplasms where there is enough information in a single code to know it should be registered – for example, Benign neoplasm of cerebrum (disorder).

Trusts should also submit a case to NDRS if the pathology report has been coded with 'SNOMED CT Concept ID' from both CLUSTER 2 and CLUSTER 3. CLUSTER 2 is benign neoplasms and CLUSTER 3 is CNS structures – NCRAS only requires benign tumours to be sent if they are associated with the CNS.

The extraction criteria is based solely on the date authorised field.

The deadline for submitting a pathology report/record is 25 working days after the end of each month and should only be submitted once the pathologist has finished assessing each sample and authorises the report.

It is acceptable for pathology records to be submitted quicker than 25 working days, and in some cases are submitted in real-time as the pathologist authorises each report using the direct submission method through the NDRS API portal.

View the reporting submission schedule dates on the COSD data set pages of this website.