RxTerms

Description

RxTerms is a drug interface terminology derived from RxNorm for prescription writing or medication history recording (e.g. in e-prescribing systems, PHRs).

Advantages

The advantages of RxTerms are:

• Free to use.
• Directly links to RxNorm, the U.S. drug terminology standard, and facilitates inclusion of RxNorm identifiers in electronic health records.
• Efficient data entry - RxTerms separates the full names in RxNorm into two parts: drug name + route (e.g. INDERAL (Oral-pill)) and strength + dose form (e.g. 80 MG Tabs) to avoid big picklists with excessively long names. It excludes drugs from RxNorm that are obsolete or unavailable in the U.S.* Try it here.
• User-friendly features - commonly used synonyms and abbreviations (e.g. HCTZ for hydrochlorothiazide), "tall man" lettering recommended by FDA to avoid medication errors (e.g. ChlorproMAZINE and ChlorproPAMIDE).
• Good coverage - retains the broad coverage of RxNorm for U.S. prescribable drugs - 99% coverage of both generic and brand names of U.S. most commonly prescribed drugs according to one assessment. RxTerms is tailored for U.S. prescribing and it might not be the right choice for many non-U.S. countries.

RxTerms is developed and maintained by the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, NLM. Please directly email comments or questions to: NLM Support Center.

• Availability in U.S. is based on the Current Prescribable Content of RxNorm. This is an approximation and may not be 100% accurate.

Additional reading:

Table info

Main RxTerms file - RxTerms(version).txt

These are the fields and their description:

1. RXCUI - the RxNorm unique identifier for the clinical drug, which can be one of the following term types:
• Semantic Clinical Drug (SCD) e.g. azithromycin 250 MG Oral Capsule.
• Semantic Branded Drug (SBD) e.g. azithromycin 250 MG Oral Capsule [Zithromax].
• Generic Pack (GPCK) e.g. {6 (azithromycin 250 MG Oral Tablet) } Pack
• Branded Pack (BPCK) e.g. {6 (azithromycin 250 MG Oral Tablet [Zithromax]) } Pack [Z-PAKS].
2. GENERIC_RXCUI - this is the corresponding generic clinical drug for SBD and BPCK (null for SCD).
3. TTY - term type in RxNorm.
4. FULL_NAME - the full RxNorm name of the clinical drug.
5. RXN_DOSE_FORM - dose form and intended route information from RxNorm.
6. FULL_GENERIC_NAME - the generic part of the full RxNorm name.
7. BRAND_NAME - the brand name part of the full RxNorm name (null for SCD). Brand names are in all uppercase to distinguish them from generic names.
8. DISPLAY_NAME - drug name (either generic or brand name) and intended route e.g. INDERAL (Oral-pill).
9. ROUTE - intended route derived from RXN_DOSE_FORM.
10. NEW_DOSE_FORM - dose form derived from RXN_DOSE_FORM.
11. STRENGTH - strength information parsed from the RxNorm full name.
12. SUPPRESS_FOR - to flag drug names deemed not likely to be useful for data entry. For example, long generic drug names with multiple ingredients (e.g. Bacitracin/Hydrocortisone/Neomycin/Polymyxin B) are suppressed because they are almost always prescribed by their brand names (e.g. CORTISPORIN OINTMENT). Any non-null value means that a row should be suppressed.
13. DISPLAY_NAME_SYNONYM - commonly used synonyms or abbreviations for the drug e.g. MOM for Milk of Magnesia.
14. IS_RETIRED - to flag records that existed in earlier versions but not in the latest version.
15. SXDG_RXCUI - the RxNorm unique identifier for the entity represented by the DISPLAY_NAME (drug + intended route). The corresponding TTY (term type) in RxNorm is either SCDG (Semantic Clinical Doseform Group) or SBDG (Semantic Branded Doseform Group), as represented in the field SXDG_TTY.
16. SXDG_TTY - the RxNorm TTY of the semantic doseform group
17. SXDG_NAME - the RxNorm name of the semantic doseform group
18. PSN - the RxNorm prescribable name

The fields DISPLAY_NAME, DISPLAY_NAME_SYNONYM, NEW_DOSE_FORM and STRENGTH are probably the most useful. We advise you to exclude rows that are suppressed or retired (i.e. rows with non-null values in SUPPRESS_FOR or IS_RETIRED).

Ingredients file - Ingredients(version).txt (available after 201106 release)

This file lists the ingredients and their RXCUIs for every drug in RxTerms that is not suppressible or retired.

1. RXCUI - the RxNorm uniquie identifier for the clinical drug
2. INGREDIENT - name of ingredient
3. ING_RXCUI - RXCUI of ingredient

Source links

Download

RxTerms

RxTerms is a drug interface terminology derived from RxNorm for prescription writing or medication history recording (e.g. in e-prescribing systems, PHRs). The advantages of RxTerms are: Free to use. Directly links to RxNorm, the U.S. drug terminology standard, and facilitates inclusion of RxNorm identifiers in electronic health records.

lhncbc.nlm.nih.gov

Zip file containing two txt files:

• RxTermsYYYYMM.txt - The main RxTerms file. The fields DISPLAY_NAME, DISPLAY_NAME_SYNONYM, NEW_DOSE_FORM and STRENGTH are probably the most useful. We advise you to exclude rows that are suppressed or retired (i.e. rows with non-null values in SUPPRESS_FOR or IS_RETIRED).
• IngredientsYYYYMM.txt - This file lists the ingredients and their RXCUIs for every drug in RxTerms that is not suppressible or retired.

API

Update frequency

Monthly - note the file name is in the format YYYYMM

Example for October 2021: RxTerms202110.zip

Licensing

On this page

• RxTerms
• Description
• Advantages
• Table info
• Main RxTerms file - RxTerms(version).txt
• Ingredients file - Ingredients(version).txt (available after 201106 release)
• Source links
• Download
• API
• Update frequency
• Licensing