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Unified Medical Language System® (UMLS®)

RxNorm Release Notes

March Release - 03/06/2017

This release of RxNorm is consistent with the 2016AB 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 NameSABVersion
Vaccines Administered CVX CVX_2017_02_08
DrugBank DRUGBANK DRUGBANK5.0_2017_02_02
Gold Standard Drug Database GS GS_2017_02_13
Medi-Span Master Drug Data Base MDDB MDDB_2017_02_08
Multum MediSource Lexicon MMSL MMSL_2017_02_01
Micromedex RED BOOK MMX MMX_2017_02_06
FDA Structured Product Labels MTHSPL MTHSPL_2017_02_27
FDB MedKnowledge (formerly NDDF Plus) NDDF NDDF_2017_02_08
Veterans Health Administration National Drug File - Reference Terminology NDFRT NDFRT_2017_03_06
NDFRT FDASPL relationships NDFRT_FDASPL NDFRT_FDASPL_2017_03_06
NDFRT FMTSME relationships NDFRT_FMTSME NDFRT_FMTSME_2017_03_06
US Edition of SNOMED CT (drug information) SNOMEDCT_US SNOMEDCT_US_2017_01_31
Veterans Health Administration National Drug File VANDF VANDF_2017_01_19

 

The following sources have not been updated in this release:

Source NameSABVersion
Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System ATC ATC_2017
CMS Formulary Reference File MTHCMSFRF MTHCMSFRF_2014
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) MSH MSH2017_2016_08_12

Data Changes

This release includes many changes to dose forms for injectable products as part of the ongoing prescribable names (TTY=PSN) work. In addition to the changes to those changes, PSNs for the following dose forms are now available:

New Data Source Included
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is pleased to announce the addition of a new data source to RxNorm – CVX (Vaccines Administered). The addition of CVX data to RxNorm helps facilitate the electronic exchange of vaccine information in electronic health records. CVX includes both active and inactive vaccines available in the US. CVX codes for inactive vaccines allow electronic transmission of historical immunization records. CVX is maintained and developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center of Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD).

New Dose Form Added
RxNorm includes a new dose form: Tablet for Oral Suspension. This dose form is defined as a tablet to be reconstituted with diluent prior to administration to form a suspension intended to be taken by mouth. This change affects 12 SBD concepts and their related graphs.

Qualitative Distinction
Please see the technical documentation for an explanation of Qualitative Distinctions (QDs), which were first released in the August monthly release.

To facilitate e-Prescribing of generic epinephrine auto-injector products, we created separate RXCUIs for each product using QDs. Here are the new concepts with QDs in the March release:

RXCUITTYString
727316SCDNDA019430 0.3 ML Epinephrine 0.5 MG/ML Auto-Injector
727386SBDNDA019430 0.3 ML Epinephrine 0.5 MG/ML Auto-Injector [Epipen]
1870207SCDNDA019430 0.3 ML Epinephrine 1 MG/ML Auto-Injector
727347SBDNDA019430 0.3 ML Epinephrine 1 MG/ML Auto-Injector [Epipen]
1870225SCDNDA020800 0.15 ML Epinephrine 1 MG/ML Auto-Injector
891437SBDNDA020800 0.15 ML Epinephrine 1 MG/ML Auto-Injector [Adrenaclick]
1870230SCDNDA020800 0.3 ML Epinephrine 1 MG/ML Auto-Injector
891438SBDNDA020800 0.3 ML Epinephrine 1 MG/ML Auto-Injector [Adrenaclick]
1870232SCDNDA201739 0.15 ML Epinephrine 1 MG/ML Auto-Injector
1305268SBDNDA201739 0.15 ML Epinephrine 1 MG/ML Auto-Injector [Auvi-Q]
1870205SCDNDA201739 0.3 ML Epinephrine 1 MG/ML Auto-Injector
1305269SBDNDA201739 0.3 ML Epinephrine 1 MG/ML Auto-Injector [Auvi-Q]

For each SCD or SBD with a QD, there is an associated attribute in RXNSAT with the attribute name (ATN) of 'RXN_QUALITATIVE_DISTINCTION'. The March release contains the following new attributes to match the QD strings found in the SCD and SBD normalized names:

Data Counts

Term Type or AttributeNumber
Active GPCKs363
Active BPCKs425
Active SCDs18740
Active SBDs10484
Active RXNORM MINs3958
Active RXNORM INs11284
Active RXNORM PINs2633
Active RXNORM BNs6128
Active RXNORM DFs116
  
Obsolete GPCKs157
Obsolete BPCKs137
Obsolete SCDs16236
Obsolete SBDs10323
Obsolete RXNORM MINs0
Obsolete RXNORM INs0
Obsolete RXNORM PINs0
Obsolete RXNORM BNs9823
Obsolete RXNORM DFs59
Editor-suppressed SCDs1668
Editor-suppressed SBDs1332
Source-asserted NDCs1250163
Distinct source-asserted NDCs591022
SAB=RXNORM NDCs224124
Distinct SAB=RXNORM NDCs224124

Last Reviewed: March 6, 2017