7. World Health Organisation - Classification of ME

  • The World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases (10th revision) states that ME is a neurological disorder under Diseases of the Nervous System, as are Multiple Sclerosis and Epilepsy. The classification code for ME/CFS is G93.3.

ICD-10 (currently used in UK, Australia, Europe, Canada and other countries)
ICD-10 is published in three volumes: - Volume 1 is the Tabular list, i.e. the main listing of diseases, disease categories and codes - Volume 2 is the Instruction manual - Volume 3 is the Alphabetical index.
An anomaly of ICD-10 is that while the Tabular list and the Instruction manual are published online on the WHO website, the Alphabetical index is not, being only available in book and CD-ROM form. Listings below are from the Tabular List, with the exception of the listing for ‘CFS,’ which is from the Alphabetical index.
G00-G99 Diseases of the nervous system (Chapter VI)
G90-G99 Other disorders of the nervous system G93 Other disorders of brain
G93.3 Postviral fatigue syndrome
Benign myalgic encephalomyelitis

‘CFS’ has no listing in the Tabular list of ICD-10. ‘CFS’ is only listed in the Alphabetical index, as follows:
Syndrome
- fatigue F48.0
- - chronic G93.3
- - postviral G93.3 ...

R00-R99 Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (Chapter XVIII)
R50-R69 General symptoms and signs
R53 Malaise and fatigue [note: no R53.82 Chronic fatigue syndrome, as there is in ICD-10 CM (USA)]
Excludes: debility:
exhaustion and fatigue (due to)(in):
- neurasthenia ( F48.0 )
- fatigue syndrome ( F48.0 )
- postviral ( G93.3 )

F00-F99 Mental and behavioural disorders (Chapter V)
F40-F48 Neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders
F48 Other neurotic disorders
F48.0 Neurasthenia [long paragraph of descriptive text giving symptoms of neurasthenia...] Fatigue syndrome [note: this is the only occurrence of ‘fatigue syndrome’ (not ‘postviral’) in ICD-10. Note that it is not ‘chronic,’ i.e. not ‘CFS.’]
Excludes: ... malaise and fatigue ( R53 ) postviral fatigue syndrome ( G93.3 )

The US ICD-10-CM was made official and implemented, replacing ICM-9-CM, on October 1, 2015. (used in the USA)
https://www.cms.gov/medicare/Coding/ICD10/index.html

G00-G99 Diseases of the nervous system
G89-G99 Other disorders of the nervous system G93 Other disorders of brain
G93.3 Postviral fatigue syndrome [note: same as ICD-10]
Benign myalgic encephalomyelitis
Excludes1: chronic fatigue syndrome NOS (R53.82) [note: not in ICD-10] ...

R00-R99 Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified
R50-R69 General symptoms and signs
R53 Malaise and fatigue
R53.8 Other malaise and fatigue
R53.82 Chronic fatigue, unspecified [note: not in ICD-10] Chronic fatigue syndrome NOS [note: ‘NOS’ is new; the listing for ‘CFS’ in ICD-9 does not say ‘NOS’ ]
Excludes1: postviral fatigue syndrome (G93.3)

This means ME is separate to CFS

 


 

 

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