From a life science dictionary to clinical informatics : Toward the knowledge finding from medical texts

Abstract

We collected more than one hundred thousand English and Japanese terms respectively from medical research reports and compiled a bilingual life science thesaurus with synonym table and tree structure. We have published a Web-based thesaurus which features an associative search for medical researchers. In the course of the thesaurus development, a mouse-over dictionary for English medical terms has been also made available. In addition, we have applied the thesaurus to resolve various drug names appeared in FDA Adverse Events Reporting System. Our thesaurus will pave the way for clinical informatics that enables knowledge finding from medical documents.