The U.S. National Library Medicine is responsible for two free web drug-related databases that are intended to be used by both consumers and healthcare professionals. Provided as a public service, these databases do not include any pharmaceutical company advertisements and are not marketing tools. Both resources also provide application development support, making the content easily available to computer programers/developers.

1. Pillbox

“The Pillbox website was developed to aid in the identification of unknown pills (oral solid dosage form medications). It combines images of pills with appearance and other information to enable users to visually search for and identify oral solid dosage form medications.” Among other identifiers, Pillbox can even be searched by pill imprint, shape, and color.

Pillbox is one of the largest free databases of prescription and over-the-counter drug information and images, combining data from pharmaceutical companies, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). As of 10/01/19, it includes 8,781 pill images, 33,255 products, and 67,365 records.

2. DailyMed

DailyMed provides high quality information about marketed drugs, both human and animal drugs, via their FDA labels (package inserts). It provides health information providers and the public with a standard, comprehensive, and up-to-date resource of medication content and labeling as found in medication package inserts.

This website contains 112,954 drug listings as submitted to the FDA. (Note: This is not a complete listing of labels for approved prescription drugs.) The website also includes a label archives search where previous versions of labels can be found.

To learn more about these tools or other drug-related databases (like Micromedex or LexiComp Online) provided via the MSK Library, feel free to Ask Us!

A group of researchers from Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands recently published a paper where they describe the development and validation of bibliographic database search filters/hedges useful for identifying scholarly literature in the field of palliative care.

Rietjens JA, Bramer WM, Geijteman EC, van der Heide A, Oldenmenger WH. Development and validation of search filters to find articles on palliative care in bibliographic databases. Palliat Med. 2019 Apr;33(4):470-474. doi:10.1177/0269216318824275. Epub 2019 Jan 28. PubMed PMID: 30688143; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6439930.

Search filters can be used by anyone carrying out database searches, both professional librarians and non-librarians alike. They help you save time by allowing you to take advantage of the good work of others to more quickly and efficiently extract what you need from bibliographic databases.

To add a search filter to your search strategy, simply copy the appropriate search string provided by the authors and paste it into the database search form that you are using, being sure to note the database name and vendor interface (the syntax will vary depending on the particular interface being used). You can copy the palliative care filter directly from Table 1 or from the plain text version available in the Supplemental data file. After starting your research with the topic-specific core set of search results that the search filter/hedge returns, you can then add your favorite terms to further customize the search strategy toward your particular interests.

For more tips on identifying literature on a particular topic, be sure to Ask Us!

The National Cancer Institute‘s PDQ® (Physician Data Query) cancer information summaries are “peer-reviewed, evidence-based summaries on topics including adult and pediatric cancer treatment, supportive and palliative care, screening, prevention, genetics, and complementary and alternative medicine.” Versions specifically customized for both patients and health professionals are freely-available for every topic and can be accessed via PubMed or via the NCBI Bookshelf.

The range of topics available is quite extensive, with the Treatment section even including a recently updated PDQ® on Financial Toxicity, a topic both patients and health professionals could benefit from knowing more about – for example, see:

PDQ Adult Treatment Editorial Board. Financial Toxicity (Financial Distress) and Cancer Treatment (PDQ®): Patient Version. 2019 Jul 3. PDQ Cancer Information Summaries [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Cancer Institute (US); 2002-. Available from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441635/   PubMed PMID: 28682576.

To find out more about the development and impact of the PDQ® series, be sure to read this article:

Manrow RE, Beckwith M, Johnson LE. NCI’s Physician Data Query (PDQ®) cancer information summaries: history, editorial processes, influence, and reach. J Cancer Educ. 2014 Mar;29(1):198-205. doi: 10.1007/s13187-013-0536-3. PubMed PMID: 23996204.

Questions? Ask Us!