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Medical Subject Headings

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Welcome to Medical Subject Headings

The Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus is a controlled and hierarchically-organized vocabulary produced by the National Library of Medicine. It is used for indexing, cataloging, and searching of biomedical and health-related information. MeSH includes the subject headings appearing in MEDLINE/PubMed, the NLM Catalog, and other NLM databases.

Recent MeSH Updates

Visit our What's New  page to see all recent MeSH developments including the most recent ones listed below

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Learn About MeSH

Related MeSH Efforts

  • RxNorm: A drug vocabulary used for e-prescribing, formulary, medication history, government reporting, drug compendia mapping, and other uses
  • Daily Med: Provides trustworthy information about marketed drugs in the United States
  • Unified Medical Language System (UMLS®) Metathesaurus: A collection of biomedical names and codes grouped as sets of synonyms, derived from over 150 medical vocabulary sources.
  • NLM Classification: A NLM vocabulary used for the arrangement of library materials in the field of medicine and related sciences.

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Last Reviewed: September 19, 2024