Generate a candidate codelist

In this example we will create a candidate codelist for osteoarthritis, exploring how different search strategies may impact our final codelist. First, let’s load the necessary packages and create a cdm reference using mock data.

library(dplyr)
library(CodelistGenerator)

cdm <- mockVocabRef()

The mock data has the following hypothetical concepts and relationships:

Search for keyword match

We will start by creating a codelist with keywords match. Let’s say that we want to find those codes that contain “Musculoskeletal disorder” in their concept_name: 

getCandidateCodes(
  cdm = cdm,
  keywords = "Musculoskeletal disorder",
  domains = "Condition", 
  standardConcept = "Standard",
  includeDescendants = FALSE,
  searchInSynonyms = FALSE,
  searchNonStandard = FALSE,
  includeAncestor = FALSE
)
#> # A tibble: 1 × 6
#>   concept_id found_from    concept_name domain_id vocabulary_id standard_concept
#>        <int> <chr>         <chr>        <chr>     <chr>         <chr>           
#> 1          1 From initial… Musculoskel… Condition SNOMED        S

Note that we could also identify it based on a partial match or based on all combinations match.

getCandidateCodes(
  cdm = cdm,
  keywords = "Musculoskeletal",
  domains = "Condition",
  standardConcept = "Standard",
  searchInSynonyms = FALSE,
  searchNonStandard = FALSE,
  includeDescendants = FALSE,
  includeAncestor = FALSE
)
#> # A tibble: 1 × 6
#>   concept_id found_from    concept_name domain_id vocabulary_id standard_concept
#>        <int> <chr>         <chr>        <chr>     <chr>         <chr>           
#> 1          1 From initial… Musculoskel… Condition SNOMED        S

getCandidateCodes(
  cdm = cdm,
  keywords = "Disorder musculoskeletal",
  domains = "Condition",
  standardConcept = "Standard",
  searchInSynonyms = FALSE,
  searchNonStandard = FALSE,
  includeDescendants = FALSE,
  includeAncestor = FALSE
)
#> # A tibble: 1 × 6
#>   concept_id found_from    concept_name domain_id vocabulary_id standard_concept
#>        <int> <chr>         <chr>        <chr>     <chr>         <chr>           
#> 1          1 From initial… Musculoskel… Condition SNOMED        S

Notice that currently we are only looking for concepts with domain = "Condition". However, we can expand the search to all domains using domain = NULL.

Include non-standard concepts

Now we will include standard and non-standard concepts in our initial search. By setting standardConcept = c("Non-standard", "Standard"), we allow the function to return, in the final candidate codelist, both the non-standard and standard codes that have been found.

getCandidateCodes(
  cdm = cdm,
  keywords = "Musculoskeletal disorder",
  domains = "Condition",
  standardConcept = c("Non-standard", "Standard"),
  searchInSynonyms = FALSE,
  searchNonStandard = FALSE,
  includeDescendants = FALSE,
  includeAncestor = FALSE
)
#> # A tibble: 2 × 6
#>   concept_id found_from    concept_name domain_id vocabulary_id standard_concept
#>        <int> <chr>         <chr>        <chr>     <chr>         <chr>           
#> 1          1 From initial… Musculoskel… Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 2         24 From initial… Other muscu… Condition SNOMED        <NA>

Multiple search terms

We can also search for multiple keywords simultaneously, capturing all of them with the following search:

getCandidateCodes(
  cdm = cdm,
  keywords = c(
    "Musculoskeletal disorder",
    "arthritis"
  ),
  domains = "Condition",
  standardConcept = c("Standard"),
  includeDescendants = FALSE,
  searchInSynonyms = FALSE,
  searchNonStandard = FALSE,
  includeAncestor = FALSE
)
#> # A tibble: 4 × 6
#>   concept_id found_from    concept_name domain_id vocabulary_id standard_concept
#>        <int> <chr>         <chr>        <chr>     <chr>         <chr>           
#> 1          1 From initial… Musculoskel… Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 2          3 From initial… Arthritis    Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 3          4 From initial… Osteoarthri… Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 4          5 From initial… Osteoarthri… Condition SNOMED        S

Add descendants

Now we will include the descendants of an identified code using includeDescendants argument 

getCandidateCodes(
  cdm = cdm,
  keywords = "Musculoskeletal disorder",
  domains = "Condition",
  standardConcept = "Standard",
  includeDescendants = TRUE,
  searchInSynonyms = FALSE,
  searchNonStandard = FALSE,
  includeAncestor = FALSE
)
#> # A tibble: 5 × 6
#>   concept_id found_from    concept_name domain_id vocabulary_id standard_concept
#>        <int> <chr>         <chr>        <chr>     <chr>         <chr>           
#> 1          1 From initial… Musculoskel… Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 2          2 From descend… Osteoarthro… Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 3          3 From descend… Arthritis    Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 4          4 From descend… Osteoarthri… Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 5          5 From descend… Osteoarthri… Condition SNOMED        S

Notice that now, in the column found_from, we can see that we have obtain concept_id=1 from an initial search, and concept_id_=c(2,3,4,5) when searching for descendants of concept_id 1.

With exclusions

We can also exclude specific keywords using the argument exclude

getCandidateCodes(
  cdm = cdm,
  keywords = "Musculoskeletal disorder",
  domains = "Condition",
  exclude = c("Osteoarthrosis", "knee"),
  standardConcept = "Standard",
  includeDescendants = TRUE,
  searchInSynonyms = FALSE,
  searchNonStandard = FALSE,
  includeAncestor = FALSE
)
#> # A tibble: 3 × 6
#>   concept_id found_from    concept_name domain_id vocabulary_id standard_concept
#>        <int> <chr>         <chr>        <chr>     <chr>         <chr>           
#> 1          1 From initial… Musculoskel… Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 2          3 From descend… Arthritis    Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 3          5 From descend… Osteoarthri… Condition SNOMED        S

Add ancestor

To include the ancestors one level above the identified concepts, we can use the argument includeAncestor 

codes <- getCandidateCodes(
  cdm = cdm,
  keywords = "Osteoarthritis of knee",
  includeAncestor = TRUE,
  domains = "Condition",
  standardConcept = "Standard",
  includeDescendants = TRUE,
  searchInSynonyms = FALSE,
  searchNonStandard = FALSE,
)

codes
#> # A tibble: 2 × 6
#>   concept_id found_from    concept_name domain_id vocabulary_id standard_concept
#>        <int> <chr>         <chr>        <chr>     <chr>         <chr>           
#> 1          4 From initial… Osteoarthri… Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 2          3 From ancestor Arthritis    Condition SNOMED        S

Search using synonyms

We can also pick up codes based on their synonyms. For example, Osteoarthrosis has a synonym of Arthritis. 

getCandidateCodes(
  cdm = cdm,
  keywords = "osteoarthrosis",
  domains = "Condition",
  searchInSynonyms = TRUE,
  standardConcept = "Standard",
  includeDescendants = FALSE,
  searchNonStandard = FALSE,
  includeAncestor = FALSE
)
#> # A tibble: 2 × 6
#>   concept_id found_from    concept_name domain_id vocabulary_id standard_concept
#>        <int> <chr>         <chr>        <chr>     <chr>         <chr>           
#> 1          2 From initial… Osteoarthro… Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 2          3 In synonyms   Arthritis    Condition SNOMED        S

Notice that if includeDescendants = TRUE, Arthritis descendants will also be included: 

getCandidateCodes(
  cdm = cdm,
  keywords = "osteoarthrosis",
  domains = "Condition",
  searchInSynonyms = TRUE,
  standardConcept = "Standard",
  includeDescendants = TRUE,
  searchNonStandard = FALSE,
  includeAncestor = FALSE
)
#> # A tibble: 4 × 6
#>   concept_id found_from    concept_name domain_id vocabulary_id standard_concept
#>        <int> <chr>         <chr>        <chr>     <chr>         <chr>           
#> 1          2 From initial… Osteoarthro… Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 2          3 In synonyms   Arthritis    Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 3          4 From descend… Osteoarthri… Condition SNOMED        S               
#> 4          5 From descend… Osteoarthri… Condition SNOMED        S

Search via non-standard

We can also pick up concepts associated with our keyword via non-standard search. 

codes1 <- getCandidateCodes(
  cdm = cdm,
  keywords = "Degenerative",
  domains = "Condition",
  standardConcept = "Standard",
  searchNonStandard = TRUE,
  includeDescendants = FALSE,
  searchInSynonyms = FALSE,
  includeAncestor = FALSE
)
codes1
#> # A tibble: 1 × 6
#>   concept_id found_from    concept_name domain_id vocabulary_id standard_concept
#>        <int> <chr>         <chr>        <chr>     <chr>         <chr>           
#> 1          2 From non-sta… Osteoarthro… Condition SNOMED        S

Let’s take a moment to focus on the standardConcept and searchNonStandard arguments to clarify the difference between them. standardConcept specifies whether we want only standard concepts or also include non-standard concepts in the final candidate codelist. searchNonStandard determines whether we want to search for keywords among non-standard concepts.

In the previous example, since we set standardConcept = "Standard", we retrieved the code for Osteoarthrosis from the non-standard search. However, we did not obtain the non-standard code degenerative arthropathy from the initial search. If we allow non-standard concepts in the final candidate codelist, we would retireve both codes:

codes2 <- getCandidateCodes(
  cdm = cdm,
  keywords = "Degenerative",
  domains = "Condition",
  standardConcept = c("Non-standard", "Standard"),
  searchNonStandard = FALSE,
  includeDescendants = FALSE,
  searchInSynonyms = FALSE,
  includeAncestor = FALSE
)
codes2
#> # A tibble: 1 × 6
#>   concept_id found_from    concept_name domain_id vocabulary_id standard_concept
#>        <int> <chr>         <chr>        <chr>     <chr>         <chr>           
#> 1          7 From initial… Degenerativ… Condition Read          <NA>