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Medical Subject Headings

ASCII MeSH Data Elements for Supplementary Concept Records

Supplementary Concept Records in ASCII MeSH contain the data elements listed below, though not every record will have a value for every data element. The list includes all the elements in ELHILL file MeSH for this record type. Note that not every record has every data element. Sample record.

Data Element Name
DA DATE OF ENTRY
FR FREQUENCY
HM HEADING MAPPED-TO
II INDEXING INFORMATION
MR MAJOR REVISION DATE
N1 CAS TYPE 1 NAME
NM NAME OF SUBSTANCE
NM_TH  NM TERM THESAURUS ID
NO NOTE
PA PHARMACOLOGICAL ACTION
PI PREVIOUS INDEXING
RECTYPE RECORD TYPE [= RY in ELHILL MESH]
RN CAS REGISTRY/EC NUMBER/UNII CODE
RR RELATED REGISTRY NUMBER
SO SOURCE
ST SEMANTIC TYPE
SY SYNONYM **
TH THESAURUS ID
UI UNIQUE IDENTIFIER

** An SY term may have several subfields, with each subfield entry separated from another by a vertical bar. A final string "map" indicates which value goes with which subfield. For example,

SY = Proflox|T109|T121|TRD|NRW|ES Spanish Trade Name|041021|abbcdef

a the term itself
b SEMANTIC TYPE
c LEXICAL TYPE
d SEMANTIC RELATION
e THESAURUS ID
f DATE

These subfields above apply only to SY terms. For NM terms the THESAURUS ID and SEMANTIC TYPE values may also be available, but these will be displayed as regular inline elements, rather than as sub-elements, just as in the case of Descriptors. Example:

NM = ciclesonide
NM_TH = USAN (1998)
ST = T110 

For additional information on these data elements see the XML MeSH Data Elements and the corresponding ASCII MeSH element in the XML MeSH Conversion Table. Note, however, that when an SY term has SEMANTIC RELATION value of 'EQV', this means that the term is equivalent to the NM in the sense that it shares the same Concept.

Last Reviewed: April 3, 2018