Drugs, Active Ingredients and Diseases Database in Spanish. Augmenting the Resources for Analyses on Drug–Illness Interactions

Abstract

Quantitative and qualitative data on active-ingredient drug composition are essential information for characterizing near-field exposure of consumers to product-related chemicals, among other things. Equally as important is the characterization of the relationship between one or many active ingredients in terms of the diseases they are prescribed for. Such evaluations, however, require quantitative information at different anatomical levels. To complement the available sources of information on active substances and diseases, we have designed a database with enough versatility to potentially be used in a variety of analyzes. By using information provided by a well-established online pharmacological dictionary, we present a database with 11 tables which are easy to access and manipulate. Specifically, we present datasets containing the details of 12,827 marketed drug products, 40,164 diseases, 6231 active pharmaceutical ingredients and 4093 side effects. We exemplify the usefulness of our database with three simple visualizations, which confirm the importance of the data for quantifying the complexity in the associations among active substances, diseases and side effects. Although there are databases with detailed information on active substances and diseases, none of them can be found in Spanish. Our work presents an option that contributes substantially to obtaining well classified information in order to evaluate the roles of active pharmaceutical ingredients, diseases and side effects. These datasets also provide information about clinical and pharmacological groupings which may be useful for clinical and academic researchers. The database will be regularly updated and extended with the newly available Virtual Medicinal Products.

The Complex Structure of the Pharmacological Drug–Disease Network

“…Vademecum (VDM) is a well-recognized online pharmacological handbook, which includes advertising of medicines and prescriptions of pharmaceutical specialties addressed to health professionals [ 24 ]. Our group designed a database, based on the information provided by VDM, in order to have well-classified information about the roles of active pharmaceutical ingredients, diseases and side effects [ 25 ]. Our VDM dataset consists of tables of active pharmaceutical ingredients and diseases, where categorical groupings, such as Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System (ATC) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD), are assigned to the records [ 25 ].…”

“…Our group designed a database, based on the information provided by VDM, in order to have well-classified information about the roles of active pharmaceutical ingredients, diseases and side effects [ 25 ]. Our VDM dataset consists of tables of active pharmaceutical ingredients and diseases, where categorical groupings, such as Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System (ATC) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD), are assigned to the records [ 25 ]. The ATC Classification System classifies the active ingredients of drugs, according to the organ on which they act; the ICD is a classification system that provides a system of diagnostic codes for classifying diseases [ 26 ].…”