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Unified Medical Language System® (UMLS®)

RxNorm Release Notes

September Release - 09/08/2015

This release of RxNorm is consistent with the 2015AA UMLS Metathesaurus release. For additional information about RxNorm releases, including scripts for loading the RxNorm data into Oracle and MySQL databases, read the RxNorm technical documentation.

Sources

The following sources have been updated since the previous RxNorm release:

Source NameSABDate Updated
Gold Standard Drug Database GS 08/07/2015
Medi-Span Master Drug Data Base MDDB 07/29/2015
Multum MediSource Lexicon MMSL 08/01/2015
Micromedex RED BOOK MMX 08/03/2015
FDA Structured Product Labels MTHSPL 08/28/2015
FDB MedKnowledge (formerly NDDF Plus) NDDF 08/05/2015
Veterans Health Administration National Drug File - Reference Terminology NDFRT 09/08/2015
NDFRT FDASPL relationships NDFRT_FDASPL 09/08/2015
NDFRT FMTSME relationships NDFRT_FMTSME 09/08/2015
US Edition of SNOMED CT (drug information) SNOMEDCT_US 07/31/2015
Veterans Health Administration National Drug File VANDF 07/16/2015

 

The following sources have not been updated in this release:

Source NameSABDate Updated
Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System ATC 2015
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) MSH 01/26/2015
CMS Formulary Reference File MTHCMSFRF 2014

 

Data Changes

Removal of MTHFDA
The FDA NDC Directory (SAB=MTHFDA) data will no longer be available in RxNorm starting with the September release. This source was last updated in RxNorm in 2011, which is when the FDA NDC Directory switched its data source to a new system (//www.fda.gov/Drugs/InformationOnDrugs/ucm142438.htm). The new system only includes information for drugs that have structured product labels (SPLs) submitted to DailyMed. RxNorm has another data source, FDA Structured Product Labels (SAB=MTHSPL), which includes all of the drugs listed on DailyMed. Because much of the data in MTHFDA is out-of-date, and the newer content is duplicated in MTHSPL, MTHFDA is not adding any value to RxNorm and its users. Removal of MTHFDA will simplify the work of RxNorm editors, improving the quality of RxNorm while reducing the cost of production. Additionally, users will see a reduction in the RxNorm data files by over 800,000 rows of obsolete records.

Removal of ‘OCD’ Data Files
OCD data will no longer be available in the RxNorm full monthly releases beginning with the September release. As drug source providers have refined and updated their datasets over time, new information has been provided about existing drug strings, making the old information obsolete and ambiguous. Prior to the upcoming September release, RxNorm maintained this old data as SAB=RXNORM strings with term type 'OCD' in RXNCONSOOCD.RRF. Attribute and semantic type information for these data were kept in RXNSATOCD.RRF and RXNSTYOCD.RRF, respectively. As a result of this change, users will notice that the /ocd directory, which includes the /rrf directory containing RXNCONSOOCD.RRF, RXNSATOCD.RRF, and RXNSTYOCD.RRF files and the /scripts directory containing MySQL and Oracle load scripts, is no longer be included in the full monthly release zip archive. Similiar to MTHFDA mentioned above, removal of 'OCD' data will simplify the work of RxNorm editors, as well as reduce the size of the download files by over 10%.

Data Counts

Term Type or AttributeNumber
Active GPCKs 349
Active BPCKs 399
Active SCDs 19739
Active SBDs 10566
Active RXNORM MINs 3977
Active RXNORM INs 10715
Active RXNORM PINs 2450
Active RXNORM BNs 6362
Active RXNORM DFs 112
   
Obsolete GPCKs 143
Obsolete BPCKs 127
Obsolete SCDs 15162
Obsolete SBDs 10057
Obsolete RXNORM MINs 0
Obsolete RXNORM INs 0
Obsolete RXNORM PINs 0
Obsolete RXNORM BNs 9329
Obsolete RXNORM DFs 54
Editor-suppressed SCDs 1230
Editor-suppressed SBDs 1109
Source-asserted NDCs 1151519
Distinct source-asserted NDCs 537789
SAB=RXNORM NDCs 207814
Distinct SAB=RXNORM NDCs 207814

Last Reviewed: September 8, 2015