title: The MedDRA paradox.
abstract: MedDRA (the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities Terminology) is a controlled vocabulary widely used as a medical coding scheme. However, MedDRA's characterization of its structural hierarchy exhibits some confusing and paradoxical features. The goal of this paper is to examine these features, determine whether there is a coherent view of the MedDRA hierarchy that emerges, and explore what lessons are to be learned from this for using MedDRA and similar terminologies in a broad medical informatics context that includes relations among multiple disparate terminologies, thesauri, and ontologies.
authors.affiliation: GlaxoSmithKline, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA.
authors.forename: Gary H
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Merrill
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D004018:Dictionaries, Medical as Topic; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D009323:Natural Language Processing; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D014481:United States; D018875:Vocabulary, Controlled