Medical concepts

• Conditions
• Symptoms
• Risk factors

Medical information that is recognized by our engine is categorized into symptoms, laboratory test results, and risk factors. All three categories are also collectively referred to as observations. Conditions and observations together are referred to as medical concepts.

Browse through all available conditions and symptoms

Conditions:

Adults → Pediatrics →

Symptoms:

Adults → Pediatrics →

Risk factors:

Adults → Pediatrics →

To take advantage of the symptom assessment capabilities of our API, you must describe your patient cases in terms of the observations that are available in our model; in other words, you need to know the IDs of the observations that you would like to pass to the /diagnosis endpoint. To make it possible to discover and search for observations, we provide a number of endpoints, which are described in this and the subsequent sections.

For each medical concept category there are two REST-inspired read-only endpoints that support GET requests:

• one returns the list of all the concepts in a given category for a 25 year old person (e.g. /conditions?age.value=25),
• the other returns a single concept by its ID for a 25 year old person (e.g. /conditions/c_1?age.value=25).

Each concept is represented by a JSON object with several attributes. Some attributes are common to all concepts:

• id – short and unique concept id,
• name – concept name (professional medical term),
• common_name – alternative name (plain language). If common_name is not defined, the API returns name instead.

Please note that endpoints returning a single concept (e.g. /conditions/c_1?age.value=25) may return more attributes than endpoints returning a list of concepts (e.g. /conditions?age.value=25).

Below you can find descriptions and examples of the available endpoints for discovery of medical concepts. Additional information can be found in API Reference.

Conditions

Conditions represents the medical pathologies, conditions, diseases and disorders that are defined in our model. IDs of conditions always start with the c_ prefix and are followed by an integer, e.g. c_26.

Endpoints

The /conditions?age.value=25 endpoint responds to GET requests by returning the list of all available conditions.

curl "https://api.infermedica.com/v3/conditions?age.value=25"" \
  -X "GET" \
  -H "App-Id: XXXXXXXX" \
  -H "App-Key: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

The /conditions/{id}?age.value={age} endpoint also responds to GET requests, but returns the details of only a single condition. Specifying an invalid condition ID causes an error response (404).

curl "https://api.infermedica.com/v3/conditions/c_26?age.value=25" \
  -X "GET" \
  -H "App-Id: XXXXXXXX" \
  -H "App-Key: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

Attributes

Apart from id, name and common_name, each condition has several available attributes:

Example of a JSON object representing a condition, as returned by /conditions/c_26?age.value=25:

{
  "id": "c_26",
  "name": "Major depressive disorder",
  "common_name": "Depression",
  "sex_filter": "both",
  "categories": [
    "Psychiatry"
  ],
  "prevalence": "moderate",
  "acuteness": "chronic_with_exacerbations",
  "severity": "moderate",
  "extras": {
    "hint": "I suggest you consult a psychologist or psychiatrist.",
    "icd10_code": "F33"
  }
}

Symptoms

Symptoms represents medical signs and symptoms caused by conditions from our model. IDs of symptoms always start with the s_ prefix and are followed by an integer, e.g. s_962.

In our model, symptoms are organized into a parent-child hierarchy. Each symptom can have a single parent symptom assigned, e.g. severe headache is a child of headache. Each parent-child relation has a type assigned to it. The type of each relation is provided as the parent_relation attribute and describes how the child symptom relates to its parent; e.g. the child may refer to a specific body location (e.g. lumbar back pain or back pain) or an exacerbating factor (e.g. abdominal pain increasing after a meal or abdominal pain).

The parent-child hierarchy of symptoms plays an important role in the symptom assessment process:

• reporting a child symptom automatically adds its parent symptom to the evidence list
• reporting a parent symptom as absent will inform the engine not to ask about its children.

Endpoints

The /symptoms?age.value=25 endpoint responds to GET requests by returning the list of all available symptoms for a 25 years old person.

curl "https://api.infermedica.com/v3/symptoms?age.value=25"" \
  -X "GET" \
  -H "App-Id: XXXXXXXX" \
  -H "App-Key: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

The /symptoms/{id}?age.value={age} endpoint also responds to GET requests, but only returns the details of a single symptom. Specifying an invalid symptom ID causes an error response (404).

curl "https://api.infermedica.com/v3/symptoms/s_962?age.value=25" \
  -X "GET" \
  -H "App-Id: XXXXXXXX" \
  -H "App-Key: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

Attributes

Like conditions, symptoms have several available attributes (including id, name and common_name):

Example of a JSON object representing a symptom, as returned by /symptoms/s_962?age.value=25:

{
    "id": "s_962",
    "name": "Dysphagia",
    "common_name": "Difficulty swallowing",
    "question": "Have you observed discomfort or difficulty swallowing?",
    "question_third_person": "Does he|she find it difficult to swallow food or feel like it gets stuck in his|her throat or chest?",
    "sex_filter": "both",
    "category": "Signs and symptoms",
    "seriousness": "serious",
    "extras": {},
    "children": [
        {
            "id": "s_1779",
            "parent_relation": "location"
        },
        {
            "id": "s_1776",
            "parent_relation": "location"
        }
    ],
    "image_url": null,
    "image_source": null,
    "parent_id": null,
    "parent_relation": null
}

Risk factors

Risk factors represent a patient’s chronic conditions (e.g. diabetes), lifestyle factors (e.g. smoking), geographical locations (e.g. Central Africa) and events (e.g. insect bite or head injury) that may modify the baseline probability of conditions. IDs of risk factors always start with the p_ prefix (as in predisposition) and are followed by an integer, e.g. p_28.

Endpoints

The /risk_factors?age.value=25 endpoint responds to GET requests by returning the list of all available risk factors for a 25 years old person.

curl "https://api.infermedica.com/v3/risk_factors?age.value=25" \
  -X "GET" \
  -H "App-Id: XXXXXXXX" \
  -H "App-Key: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

The /risk_factors/{id}?age.value={age} endpoint also responds to GET requests, but only returns the details of a single risk factor. Specifying an invalid risk factor ID causes an error response (404).

curl "https://api.infermedica.com/v3/risk_factors/p_28?age.value=25" \
  -X "GET" \
  -H "App-Id: XXXXXXXX" \
  -H "App-Key: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

Attributes

These are the attributes available for a risk factor (including id, name and common_name):

Example of a JSON object representing a risk factor, as returned by /risk_factors/p_28?age.value=25:

{
    "id": "p_28",
    "name": "Smoking",
    "common_name": "Smoking",
    "question": "Do you smoke?",
    "question_third_person": "Do they smoke or have they smoked cigarettes in the past for at least 10 years?",
    "sex_filter": "both",
    "category": "Risk factors",
    "extras": {},
    "image_url": null,
    "image_source": null
}