Tracking Drug Trade Names in Biomedical Literature

Embase offers several options for monitoring

drug products in the biomedical literature.

Because each method entails varying ways searches are

executed, results for each may vary slightly.

Choose the option(s) that best suit your research needs.

Use Quick Search for fast and simple queries.

Extensive search matches (or “maps”) a drug trade name to its equivalent Emtree preferred term (usually its INN generic name). It also “explodes” it to retrieve narrower terms (if any), and also searches keywords from article titles, abstracts and other database fields.

This option usually retrieves most literature available in Embase; it may not be completely comprehensive.

Preliminary results appear above.

Note that the product name OxyContin has mapped to — and is searched as -- the preferred index term oxycodone. This means that Embase looks for papers indexed with oxycodone regardless of whether the name OxyContin appears or not.

Click on a record title to see its indexing.

Here, neither OxyContin nor oxycodone appear in the article abstract.

However, it does appear in the Emtree drug index terms field because the drug was discussed in the body of the original paper; therefore this citation is still relevant.

Advanced Search provides many more search options, and greater flexibility in query-building, than Quick Search.

As before, term mapping is automatically enabled (it can be turned off, if desired).

Search also for synonyms… ensures that all possible variants of a drug name are searched as well as the preferred drug term currently used for indexing. Drug names occasionally change over time, and old (replaced) names are retained in the Emtree thesaurus as synonyms.

This option provides the most comprehensive retrieval.

Note the difference in retrieval when synonym searching is included.

You can see the difference in the records retrieved by this method by excluding them from the first search set using the Boolean NOT operator, and then checking a few in detail.

Here, oxycodone does not appear as an index term, but it is mentioned peripherally in the abstract.

Drug Search allows you to take advantage of special Embase drug indexing — drug subheadings and routes of administration — for more focused searching.

This option affords very high search precision.

Note that mapping to preferred drug nomenclature is automatically enabled here.

Note slight difference in retrieval from other search modes.

Here, the set from Drug Search only finds articles with the term oxycodone in the records’ index term fields; synonyms and keywords are not searched.

The first several options work well when comprehensive retrieval of a drug topic is needed.

To find articles on a specific drug product name, use Field Search to search within the Drug Trade Name field.

Along with indexing generic names, Embase records also include drug trade names (plus manufacturer names) whenever they are mentioned within the text of the original article.

This allows you to track individual products in published research literature:

• For pharmaceutical safety and efficacy reporting requirements

• For maintaining internal product databases

• For corporate intelligence (tracking competitor products)

• And much more

Check drug trade name from the list of available data fields to look for the name OxyContin®.

Note: This option does not enable index term mapping. Only the selected data field(s) are searched.

Consider using look-up tables to find any spelling variations of drug names. Add to my Search automatically posts them to the Field Search box above.

For more complete results, consider including any possible segmented variations as well: Oxy Contin, etc.

Note the dramatic difference in hits when only specific trade names are searched.

Click on a title to view indexing.

Note the preferred generic term oxycodone in the index fields.

Drug trade names (plus drug manufacturer names and countries, when available) are displayed separately in their own fields.

Within Emtree Tool, you can use a drug product name to identify its preferred Emtree index term, to see other trade names associated with it, and learn other information about it.

Type a trade name in the Find Term box. The correct index terms appears as a link below. Follow the link for more information.

In the hierarchical Emtree thesaurus, individual drugs are grouped within drug families according to their chemical structure and/or therapeutic use.

Synonyms appear at the bottom of the page.

Synonyms include alternate drug and disease names, non-INN generic nomenclature, trade names from around the world, chemical compound names, laboratory codes, enzyme codes, and MeSH subject headings from MEDLINE.

If your search includes any of these names, it will automatically map to the matching Emtree term — thus ensuring accurate and complete retrieval.

Additional information from Dorland’s Medical Dictionary is available for many terms.

Links from the drug’s Chemical Abstracts Service registry number(s) out to PubChem for additional chemical data.

PubChem, from the National Center for Biotechnology Information, provides a wealth of additional data on chemical structures, properties, mechanisms of action and much more.