Support : Publications : Chronolog Archives : September 2001

MARTINDALE Reloaded on DataStar™

Martindale: The Complete Drug Reference (label: MART) was reloaded on DataStar this summer. Produced by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, Martindale has been the reference source of choice for practicing pharmacists and physicians since 1883 when the first edition was published. MART is the online equivalent of the 32nd edition of Martindale, but unlike the hard-copy which is only re-released every few years, the database will be updated every quarter.

It provides reliable, unbiased, and evaluated information on drugs and medicines used throughout the world. Selected investigational and veterinary drugs, herbal medicines, pharmaceutical excipients, vitamins and nutritional agents, vaccines, radiopharmaceuticals, contrast media and diagnostic agents, medicinal gases, drugs of abuse and recreational drugs, toxic substances, disinfectants, and pesticides are also included, making Martindale an invaluable resource in all branches of pharmaceutical science. Martindale is regularly updated to ensure that it continues to meet the information requirements of practitioners of medicine and pharmacy. Information is derived from published sources and is presented as sections of text with supporting referenced abstracts and reviews.

The following information relating to drugs is covered:

• definitions and descriptions
  
• adverse effects and treatments
  
• precautions
• interactions
• pharmacokinetics
• uses
• administration
• trade names of preparation

Additionally, Martindale also contains disease treatment summaries that provide overviews of diseases and the choice of treatments available.

Details of commercial preparations from a wide range of countries are searchable by trade name with cross-references to monographs for their active ingredients where fuller information is given. A directory of manufacturers of drug preparations worldwide, together with their addresses, is included.

While the hard-copy version is divided into 51 chapters--each of which brings together information on drugs and groups of drugs that have similar actions or uses--the reloaded DataStar database presents individual documents focusing on specific aspects of a drug (e.g. the precautions associated with Carbamazepine). However, the database has been designed in such a way as to make it simple to reconstruct a full description of that drug as it appears in the hard-copy (i.e. definition, adverse effects, precautions, uses and administration, etc.)

All the component parts of an entire chapter of the hard-copy can be retrieved together: thus, should you want to see the equivalent of the entire chapter on Cardiovascular Drugs, you can do so easily--up until now, this has not been possible on DataStar. Equally, should you be interested in only a certain aspect of all the drugs with similar actions or uses (e.g. the pharmacokinetics of Lipid Regulating Drugs) the functionality of Martindale on DataStar allows you easily to retrieve just these sections.

Cross-references are made throughout the database allowing you to find out further information from related documents.

To increase ease of use, look-up lists of searchable terms will be made available on DataStarWeb and DataStar for Windows. Other functionality like hyper-text linking will help users bring together related documents.

The reloaded Martindale database can be used to answer a wide variety of questions including:

• what are the adverse effects associated with Fluticasone Propionate?
• can antimuscarinic drugs be used in the treatment of gastro-intestinal disorders?
• what is the molecular formula of Benzhexol Hydrochloride?
• in Thailand, a preparation called Abacus is available; what is it, what are its properties, who manufactures it, and what is it used to treat?
• are there any drugs which are useful in the treatment of hiccups?
• what are the constituent ingredients
  of the preparation Arelcant?
• what preparations are marketed by GlaxoSmithKline in Hong Kong?

Pricing remains unchanged: SFr 87 (US$ 60) per connect hour, SFr 1-80 (US$ 1-24) per document displayed.

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