Extracting Drug-Drug Interactions from Biomedical Texts Articles uri icon

publication date

  • May 2010

issue

  • Suppl 5

volume

  • 11

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 1471-2105

abstract

  • A drug-drug interaction (DDI) occurs when one drug influences the level or activity of another drug. The detection of drug interactions is an important research area in patient safety since these interactions can become very dangerous and increase
    health care costs. Although there are different databases supporting health care professionals
    in the detection of drug interactions, this kind of resources is rarely complete.
    Drug interactions are frequently reported in journals of clinical pharmacology, making
    medical literature the most effective source for the detection of drug interactions.
    However, the increasing volume of the literature overwhelms health care professionals
    trying to keep an up-to-date collection of all reported DDIs. The development of automatic
    methods for collecting, maintaining and interpreting this information is crucial for
    achieving a real improvement in their early detection. Information Extraction (IE)
    techniques can provide an interesting way of reducing the time spent by health care
    professionals on reviewing the literature. Nevertheless, no approach has been carried
    out to extract drug-drug interactions from biomedical texts.