title: Investigating drug classes in biomedical terminologies from the perspective of clinical decision support.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess whether 1) the necessary drug classes and 2) the necessary drug-class membership relations are represented in biomedical terminologies in order to support clinical decision regarding drug-drug interactions.
  
  
  METHODS
  In order to investigate drug classes and drug-class membership in clinical terminologies, we start by establishing a reference list of these entities. Then, we map drugs and classes to the UMLS, where we investigate their relations.
  
  
  RESULTS
  186 (83%) of the 223 names for drug classes mapped to the UMLS. The single best source is SNOMED CT with 75%. 140 (89%) of the 157 drug-membership relations were found in the UMLS.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  One important category of drug classes missing from all clinical terminologies is related to drug metabolism by the Cytochrome P450 enzyme family.
authors.affiliation: U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Bodenreider
authors.forename: Dina Demner
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Fushman
mesh_terms: D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D006801:Humans; D039061:Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine; D017432:Unified Medical Language System; D018875:Vocabulary, Controlled