Hi everyone, we are working on mapping the routes of drug administration of our database using Athena. We found that among the routes of drug administration in Athena the “irrigation” is not mentioned under its “route” domain. Irrigation (administration to bathe or flush open wounds or body cavities) is a possible route, which for instance, is described by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in their data standards manual and routes of administration and “irrigation” is included in SNOMED as a procedure like all the other drug administration routes. How should we map this concept?
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@mmayer: It’s tricky. Irrigation or lavage is one of these things where it is difficult to decide whether this is more of a drug application or more of a procedure. Currently we have it as a procedure. A route of administration is a mechanism of how a drug gets applied to the body. A lavage may or may not contain any drug at all. Often, it is done with saline.
How about this: Instead of randomly adding route of administration why don’t you write the procedure, and in DRUG_EXPOSURE you write a drug product or drug form that contains the active ingredient and the Dose Form ( Topical Solution in this case).
Thank you, it seems a good solution and yes you’re totally right, this point is tricky (I’m an MD and I know it very well).