Quantity of drugs within Clinical/Branded Packs

Vocabulary Users
1

Hi there,

I was wondering where to find the quantity information for drugs within a clinical or branded pack in the RxNorm / Extension vocabulary. E.g. concept 40702707 and 40703083 contain the same two Quant Clinical Drugs but the latter one has six of each within the pack (at least according to the concept name). Is this information accessible anywhere?

Thanks for your help,
Florian

2

In the table PACK_CONTENT.

select * from pack_content where pack_concept_id=40703083;

3

Thank you @Christian_Reich

4

Thank you for your reply, at first I felt a bit embarrassed because of this simple answer, but then I could not find any information on this table neither in the documentation nor is this table contained in the DDL scripts. Could you point me in the right direction, where to find this documented and where to download the pack_content for RxNorm / RxNorm_E?

1 Like
5

There was a typo in Christian’s answer. It should read:

Select box_size
from DRUG_STRENGTH
where drug_concept_id = …

The Drug Strength table is part of the Vocabulary tables download package from Athena

6

Ha!! Never ever feel embarrassed. This is a open science community.

Looks like you are right. The table is not distributed.

No, no, @MPhilofsky. Florian wants to discern the packs (different product combos, like contraceptives). The boxes are indeed in DRUG_STRENGTH, the packs are in PACK_CONTENT. I know, it’s confusing.

7

Learn something new every day :slight_smile:

Tell me more about the PACK_CONTENT table, @Christian_Reich

8

@MPhilofsky The PACK_CONTENT table is a strict addition to the DRUG_STRENGTH table. This is how it’s done in Pallas. If you want to look up the dosages of the drug packs, the DRUG_STRENGTH will give you nothing. You would need to make an additional step through the PACK_CONTENT. However, the conventions around the drug dosage handling are still vague. But if users want to map drug packs with the respective dosages properly, this table is essential. At the same time the fact that nobody asked before means that nobody mapped so precisely before.

9

Thank you all for your answers. I will check on how many of our source data elements information on pack_content is actually needed.
But it is good to know that this information exists somewhere.