Medical Subject Headings
Medical Subject Headings/ja
Medical Subject Headings（MeSH）は、ライフサイエンスのジャーナル論文や書籍の索引付けを目的とした包括的な統制語彙である。検索を容易にするシソーラスとしての役割を果たす。米国国立医学図書館（NLM）によって作成・更新され、MEDLINE/PubMedの論文データベースやNLMの蔵書目録で利用されている。MeSHはClinicalTrials.govのレジストリでも、ClinicalTrialsに登録された臨床試験で研究されている疾患を分類するために使用されている。
 | |
| Content | |
|---|---|
| Description | Medical Subject Headings |
| Data types captured | controlled vocabulary/ja |
| Contact | |
| Research center | 米国国立医学図書館 米国国立生物工学情報センター |
| Laboratory | 米国国立医学図書館 |
| Authors | F. B. Rogers |
| Access | |
| Website | nlm.nih.gov/mesh |
MeSHは1960年代に導入され、その前身はNLM独自の索引カタログとQuarterly Cumulative Index Medicus（1940年版）の主題見出しであった。毎年発行される印刷版のMeSHは2007年に廃止され、現在はオンライン版のみとなっている。PubMedを通じて無料で閲覧、ダウンロードできる。元々は英語であったが、MeSHは他の多くの言語に翻訳されており、様々な出典の文書を検索することができる。
構造
。 MeSHの語彙は4つのタイプに分けられる。主なものは「見出し」（MeSH見出しまたは記述子とも呼ばれる）で、各論文の主題（例えば「体重」、「脳浮腫」または「クリティカルケア看護」）を記述する。これらのほとんどは、短い説明や定義、関連する記述子へのリンク、同義語やよく似た用語のリスト（entry termsとして知られる）を伴っている。MeSHには約30,000の項目があり（2022年時点）、医薬品や医学用語の変化を反映して毎年更新されている。MeSHの用語はアルファベット順で、より広範な用語の下に、より具体的な用語が配置された主題カテゴリー別の階層構造になっている。MeSH用語を検索すると、最も具体的なMeSH用語が自動的に検索に含まれる。これはMeSH用語の拡張検索またはexplodeとして知られている。この追加情報と階層構造（下記参照）により、MeSHは単なる件名見出しリストではなく、本質的にシソーラスとなっている。
第二のタイプの用語であるMeSH「小見出し」または「修飾語」（下記参照）は、有害作用、診断的作用、遺伝的作用など、対象の特定の側面をより完全に記述するためにMeSH用語と共に使用することができる。例えば、喘息の薬物療法は喘息／薬物療法と表示される。
残りの2種類の用語は、その記事が表す資料の種類を表す用語（出版物の種類）と、見出しに含まれない化学製品や薬物などの物質を表す補足概念記録（SCR）である（以下「補足」として参照）。
Descriptor hierarchy
The descriptors or subject headings are arranged in a hierarchy. A given descriptor may appear at several locations in the hierarchical tree. The tree locations carry systematic labels known as tree numbers, and consequently one descriptor can carry several tree numbers. For example, the descriptor "Digestive System Neoplasms" has the tree numbers C06.301 and C04.588.274; C stands for Diseases, C06 for Digestive System Diseases and C06.301 for Digestive System Neoplasms; C04 for Neoplasms, C04.588 for Neoplasms By Site, and C04.588.274 also for Digestive System Neoplasms. The tree numbers of a given descriptor are subject to change as MeSH is updated. Every descriptor also carries a unique alphanumerical ID that will not change.
Descriptions
Most subject headings come with a short description or definition. See the MeSH description for diabetes type 2 as an example. The explanatory text is written by the MeSH team based on their standard sources if not otherwise stated. References are mostly encyclopaedias and standard textbooks of the subject areas. References for specific statements in the descriptions are not given; instead, readers are referred to the bibliography.
Qualifiers
In addition to the descriptor hierarchy, MeSH contains a small number of standard qualifiers (also known as subheadings), which can be added to descriptors to narrow down the topic. For example, "Measles" is a descriptor and "epidemiology" is a qualifier; "Measles/epidemiology" describes the subheading of epidemiological articles about Measles. The "epidemiology" qualifier can be added to all other disease descriptors. Not all descriptor/qualifier combinations are allowed since some of them may be meaningless. In all there are 83 different qualifiers.
Supplements
In addition to the descriptors, MeSH also contains some 318,000 supplementary concept records. These do not belong to the controlled vocabulary as such; instead they enlarge the thesaurus and contain links to the closest fitting descriptor to be used in a MEDLINE search. Many of these records describe chemical substances.
Use in Medline/PubMed
In MEDLINE/PubMed, every journal article is indexed with about 10–15 subject headings, subheadings and supplementary concept records, with some of them designated as major and marked with an asterisk, indicating the article's major topics. When performing a MEDLINE search via PubMed, entry terms are automatically translated into (i.e. mapped to) the corresponding descriptors with a good degree of reliability; it is recommended to check the 'Details tab' in PubMed to see how a search formulation was translated. By default, a search for a descriptor will include all the descriptors in the hierarchy below the given one. PubMed does not apply automatic mapping of the term in the following circumstances: by writing the quoted phrase (e.g., "kidney allograft"), when truncated on the asterisk (e.g., kidney allograft *), and when looking with field labels (e.g., Cancer [ti]).
Use at ClinicalTrials.gov
At ClinicalTrials.gov, each trial has keywords that describe the trial. The ClinicalTrials.gov team assigns each trial two sets of MeSH terms. One set is for the conditions studied by the trial and the other for the set of interventions used in the trial. The XML file that can be downloaded for each trial contains these MeSH keywords. The XML file also has a comment that says: "the assignment of MeSH keywords is done by imperfect algorithm".
Categories
The top-level categories in the MeSH descriptor hierarchy are:
- Anatomy [A]
- Organisms [B]
- Diseases [C]
- Chemicals and Drugs [D]
- Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques, and Equipment [E]
- Psychiatry and Psychology [F]
- Phenomena and Processes [G]
- Disciplines and Occupations [H]
- Anthropology, Education, Sociology and Social Phenomena [I]
- Technology, Industry, and Agriculture [J]
- Humanities [K]
- Information Science [L]
- Named Groups [M]
- Health Care [N]
- Publication Characteristics [V]
- Geographicals [Z]
こちらも参照
外部リンク
- Medical Subject Heading Home provided by National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (U.S.)
- MeSH tutorials
- Automatic Term Mapping
- Browsing MeSH:
- Entrez
- MeSH Browser
- Visual MeSH Browser mapping drug-disease relationships in research
- Reference.MD
- of qualifiers – 2009