The 2024AA release of the Unified Medical Language System® (UMLS) Knowledge Sources is available for download as of May 6, 2024.

The available downloads are:

• UMLS Metathesaurus Precomputed Subsets (Requires no installation; see below for more information).
• RRF file (Most widely used Metathesaurus file).
• Full Release (UMLS Metathesaurus, Semantic Network, Specialist Lexicon and Lexical Tools, database load scripts, and MetamorphoSys for customizing your UMLS subset and browsing the data).
• UMLS Metathesaurus History Files (Files that contain historical data from the UMLS Metathesaurus).

UMLS Metathesaurus Precomputed Subsets

In past years, we have required the use of MetamorphoSys to install and customize the UMLS Metathesaurus. Now we are providing two ready-to-use precomputed subsets of the UMLS Metathesaurus that require no installation or customization.

• UMLS Metathesaurus Full Subset (complete Metathesaurus data without any customization).
• UMLS Metathesaurus Level 0 Subset (Includes only level 0 source vocabularies. Level 0 vocabularies do not have any additional restrictions beyond the standard license terms).

UMLS Metathesaurus History Files

• Concept History (MRCONSO_HISTORY.txt) - This file contains all atoms, concepts, and codes that were dropped from the UMLS Metathesaurus MRCONSO.RRF starting with the 2004AA release.

• Relation History (MRREL_HISTORY.txt) - This file contains all relations dropped from the UMLS Metathesaurus MRREL.RRF file starting with the 2004AA release.
• Source Vocabulary History (MRSAB_HISTORY.txt) - This file includes a row for every version of every UMLS source vocabulary updated in the UMLS Metathesaurus MRSAB.RRF file starting with the 2004AA release.

These files are available from the UMLS Download page: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/licensedcontent/umlsknowledgesources.html.

Please let us know if you find these files useful with comments to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Help Desk (https://support.nlm.nih.gov/support/create-case/) using the subject line: “UMLS History Files”.

Metathesaurus

The 2024AA Metathesaurus contains approximately 3.38 million concepts and 16.4 million unique concept names from 187 source vocabularies.

Two new translations:

• MDREST (Estoninan Edition of the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities Terminology (MedDRA).
• MDRFIN (Finnish Edition of the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities Terminology (MedDRA).

33 English sources and 46 translation sources were updated.  These include MeSH^®, MedDRA, RxNorm, and SNOMED CT^® (English and Spanish).  For detailed information on changes in this version of the Metathesaurus, see the Updated Sources (Expanded) section.  Additional release statistics may be found in the Statistics section.

SPECIALIST Lexicon and Lexical Tools

• The release includes the updated SPECIALIST Lexicon (2024 Release).
• The release includes the updated Lexical Tools (2024 Release) which integrate data from the SPECIALIST Lexicon, 2024 Release. The Lexical Tools include the Full and Lite versions of lvg.2024.

The Metathesaurus index files were processed using the updated lvg files.

MetamorphoSys

• The full release requires 35.1 GB of disk space.

Reported bugs may be viewed on the Release Notes and Bugs Web page.

MetamorphoSys can generate custom load scripts for MySQL, Oracle, or Microsoft Access when creating a Metathesaurus subset or installing the Semantic Network. Instructions are available on the UMLS Load Scripts homepage.

Release Information

To access the UMLS Release files, you must have an active UMLS Metathesaurus® License and a valid UTS account.  You will be prompted to authenticate with an identity provider with the UTS when downloading the files.

UMLS Learning Resources

2024AA Source Release Documentation Web pages are available. 

Additional information regarding the UMLS is available on the UMLS homepage. New users are encouraged to take the UMLS Basics Tutorial and explore other training materials.

UMLS Terminology Services (UTS)

The UTS Metathesaurus Browser and the UTS REST API include the updated release.

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New Terminology Release API Endpoint

This endpoint provides an updated list of releases for RxNorm, SNOMED CT, and UMLS. You can use this endpoint to completely automate the retrieval of the latest release files without having to manually download the files. For example, if you load RxNorm data weekly or monthly, you can monitor our release API and automatically download the data immediately when it becomes available.

Documentation:

https://documentation.uts.nlm.nih.gov/automating-downloads.html

Examples:

Request all RxNorm Full Monthly Releases:

https://uts-ws.nlm.nih.gov/releases?releaseType=rxnorm-full-monthly-release

Request the current RxNorm Full Monthly Release:

https://uts-ws.nlm.nih.gov/releases?releaseType=rxnorm-full-monthly-release&current=true

{

"fileName": "RxNorm_full_01022024.zip",

"releaseVersion": "2024-01-02",

"releaseDate": "2024-01-02",

"downloadUrl": https://download.nlm.nih.gov/umls/kss/rxnorm/RxNorm_full_01022024.zip,

"releaseType": "RxNorm Full Monthly Release",

"product": "RxNorm",

"current": true

}

Download the current RxNorm Full Monthly Release:

curl "https://uts-

ws.nlm.nih.gov/download?url=https://download.nlm.nih.gov/umls/kss/rxnorm/RxNorm_full_01022024.

zip&apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY" -o RxNorm_full_01022024.zip

UMLS User Contributions

UMLS users have extended the functionality of the UMLS in a variety of ways by developing APIs, automation scripts, and natural language processing tools. You can find a list of these on the UMLS Community web page: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/implementation_resources/community/index.html.

Want to add your tool? Send a request to the NLM Help Desk (https://support.nlm.nih.gov/support/create-case/) with the subject line: “UMLS Community.”

Be sure to include a link to your source code so that other UMLS users can adapt your tool. We are especially interested in:

• Database load scripts.
• Transformation scripts that convert UMLS data into other formats (for example, RDF or JSON).
• Scripts that automate any aspect of UMLS installation.
• Applications that leverage UMLS in the processing of text.

We value your feedback! For more information about improvements we have made to the UMLS based on user feedback, as well as information about UMLS use in general, see our UMLS User Feedback Page: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/implementation_resources/community/user_feedback.html.