Indexing/Emtree
Never At a Loss For Words
Embase indexing is based upon the Elsevier Life Science Thesaurus Emtree, a hierarchically structured, controlled vocabulary for biomedicine and related life sciences. More than twice as large as MEDLINE’s thesaurus MeSH and including all MeSH terms, Emtree opens up access to the literature via tens of thousands of biomedical terms and synonyms. Consistent descriptions of biomedical information offer indexers a comprehensive vocabulary to describe the content of biomedical data. For database users, it facilitates comprehensive searching and precision retrieval.
Just the Facts
Emtree at a glance
Emtree has been used to index Embase (including Embase Classic) since 1947, and is unrivalled in its coverage of drug, medical, and device terminology. As of May 2013,
Emtree contains:
- Over 60,000 preferred terms (more than 30,000 are drugs and chemicals)
- More than 270,000 synonyms (over 175,000 of which are drugs and chemicals)
- 7,500 explosion terms that define the hierarchical structure
- Over 3000 specific terms for general and medical devices (e.g. endoscopes, catheters, prostheses) as well as several thousand terms for related medical procedures, (e.g. endoscopy, catheterization)
- 78 subheadings (64 drug subheadings and 14 disease subheadings)
- 28 check tags for study types, including Randomized Controlled Trial, Systematic Review, and Diagnostic Test Accuracy Study
- Links to over 22,000 CAS registry numbers
- MeSH terms are included
Unparalleled Coverage
Regularly updated and drawing from many resources.
Emtree covers all new International Non-Proprietary Names (INNs) for drugs registered with the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as all US Adopted Names and NDAs (New Drug Approvals) listed by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA). Trade names belonging to major pharmaceutical companies are covered as well. Emtree is updated three times each year, with backposting of older records in www.embase.com to bring indexing in line with the current update.
Easy To Use
Emtree makes searching simple.
Emtree’s polyhierarchical structure means that there is no need to know “where” terms are located in the Emtree structure. And its natural language terminology means that you don’t need to know “how” terms are defined in Emtree.
Embase Indexing Guide 2012
For help in formulating search queries and insight on what results to expect, check the Embase Indexing Guide 2012.
- Download a list of terms added to Emtree in January 2011
- Download a list of terms added to Emtree in January 2012
- Download a list of terms added to Emtree in June 2012
- Download a list of terms added to Emtree in September 2012
- Download a list of terms added to Emtree in January 2013
- Download a list of terms added to Emtree in May 2013
