Pneumonia vs. Pneumonitis

The terms pneumonia and pneumonitis are often used interchangeably. In SNOMED CT, pneumonia is used for infectious causes, and pneumonitis is used for noninfectious causes.

Some concepts may contain a synonym with the other pneumoni- term due to high/common usage in medical literature.

Pneumonia is a type of pneumonitis, as inflammation is present in both. The distinguishing feature between the two disorders is the presence of infection in pneumonia. Pneumonia has a Pathological process (attribute) of Infectious process (qualifier value); Pneumonitis does not.

Figure 1. Stated view of 205237003 |Pneumonitis (disorder)|

Figure 2. Stated view of 233604007 |Pneumonia (disorder)|

Morphologic abnormality

The morphologic abnormality for both 233604007 |Pneumonia (disorder)| and 205237003 |Pneumonitis (disorder)| is 409774005 |Inflammatory morphology (morphologic abnormality)|.

The clinically-warranted morphologic abnormality for many subtypes of pneumonia is 707496003 |Inflammation and consolidation (morphologic abnormality)|. Consolidation is a feature of most forms of pneumonia; however, it may not be a feature of all pneumonias, such as atypical pneumonias.