Enhanced Biomedical Collection on DataStar

Added content and other database enhancements in pharmaceutical, biomedical and healthcare areas give DataStar a strong start to 2007. Read stories in this issue that highlight value-added content in Pharmaprojects, easier tracking of clinical trials in EMBASE®, new eLink options for CAB Abstracts, updated controlled vocabulary thesauri to facilitate searching in the CAB International databases and updating on MEDLINE.

And, this is only the beginning — stay tuned for announcements on the MEDLINE reload, additions to BIOSIS Previews® and more.

Customize Your RTF Output on DataStar

You can now customize the front page of output generated in Rich Text Format (RTF) from DataStar. This feature is already available for PDF output. Custom HTML templates are automatically converted into RTF by DataStar. Not only text, but JPEG images can be added to the front page of RTF output.

Pharmaprojects Databases Reloaded with Enhancements

Pharmaprojects databases (PHAR, PHLP, PHDI, PHZZ) were reloaded with additional content. The following data enhancements were implemented:

• Licensing availability for all 40 Pharmaprojects countries (PH)
• Multiple patent and priority information included in tabular format (PA)
• Indication as to whether the substance is a new chemical entity (CI)
• New Target information, including synonyms for the target being covered and additional family groups (TG)

For complete details about the new enhancements, consult the Base database for Pharmaprojects (BASE-PHAR) or the Datasheet.

Clinical Trial Numbers Added to EMBASE® and EMCare®

From January 1, 2007, EMBASE (EMED, EMZZ) and EMCare (EMCA) record Clinical Trial numbers from two separate sources (see below) if they appear in the fulltext of the original article. The trial numbers are displayed at the end of the Abstract (AB).

Background: The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has been advocating proper registration of all clinical trials. During the clinical research phases of drug development, pharmaceutical companies organize clinical trials for the drugs that they are developing. This way it is always possible to look up how many trials were set up for a drug and to monitor if the results of all trials have been reported on. The pharmaceutical industry associations worldwide have agreed with this initiative and have adopted the ICMJE recommendations.

There are currently two such databases that meet all ICMJE criteria, one based in the U.S. and one in the U.K.

1. Clinicaltrials.gov, a database set up and run by the NIH/NLM
2. International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number Register

Dialog eLinks — New Option for CAB Abstracts (CABI)

A new option in the Dialog eLinks Manager allows you to subscribe to one or more categories of journals in CAB Abstracts. Instead of selecting each journal individually, you can now choose one or several categories to a maximum of seven and have access to the fulltext for each journal of that category. This simplifies the process of subscribing to each journal separately.

EMCare and British Nursing Index for Your Nursing and Healthcare Needs

Cinahl® (NAHL) will be changing from open, transactional access to subscriber- only access. Nursing and healthcare topics are well covered in both EMCare® (EMCA) and British Nursing Index (BNID). Both databases provide summaries of publications for all specialties of nursing.

International in scope, EMCare is very current with articles online and indexed in one month or less. About two-thirds of the journals from Cinahl are included in EMCare. British Nursing Index, with annotated titles, informative abstracts and eLinks to fulltext, focuses specifically on specialist British nursing journals and medical, health management and allied health fields relevant to U.K. nurses and midwives. A representative number of non-U.K. specialist journals are also covered.

For help setting up your Alerts in EMCare and British Nursing Index, contact the Alerts Bureau to assist you.

IMS Company Profiles Reloaded on DataStar

An invaluable tool when researching the world's major pharmaceutical companies, IMS Company Profiles (IPCP) has been reloaded on DataStar. IMS Company Profiles database contains detailed information on each company's strategic and therapeutic focus, patenting and licensing activities and future prospects.

Here are some changes to make searching the database even more cost effective:

• The database now contains only the current profile for each company covered by IMS; updated profiles replace superseded records.
• The database is updated monthly.
• If a profile has been amended since the last annual release, it will contain the term UPDATE in the company name paragraph. These records can be retrieved using the search command UPDATE=YES, or by selecting the corresponding checkbox on DataStarWeb.
• Searchers can now select from the profile’s table of contents and display (and pay for) only those parts of the profile that have been changed since the previous release.
  

Dialog NewsRoom Sources Update

In December, 91 new titles were added to the Dialog NewsRoom (NEWS) database. New titles include New York Daily News and 11 titles from McGraw-Hill covering the energy industry.