UMLS® 2008AB Release Available

T he 2008AB release of the Unified Medical Language System® (UMLS) Knowledge Sources is available for download from the UMLS Knowledge Source Server (UMLSKS) as of November 17, 2008. The new UMLS Release includes:

• Two new sources and one new translation:
  • Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA) Ontology
  • MEDCIN (medical terminology)
  • Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities Terminology (MedDRA), Czech Edition
• Twenty-seven English sources and ten translation sources were updated in this release. This includes MeSH®, ICD-9-CM, HUGO®, MedDRA, SNOMED CT® (English and Spanish), the NCI Thesaurus, and MedlinePlus® Health Topics. For a complete list of updated sources, see: www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/updated_sources.html.
  
  

For more information, please see the What's New for This Version of the UMLS section in the Release Documentation.

To access the UMLS Release files, you must have an active UMLS Metathesaurus® license and a valid UMLSKS account. Log into the UMLSKS and click on "UMLS Knowledge Sources" to download the files. The "UMLS Knowledge Sources" link is located on the left side of the UMLSKS homepage under "Downloads."

DVDs will be mailed after mid-December to licensees who request them.

The NLM UMLS Team is currently working on a series of information pages for each source. Look for the new link to these Source Release Documentation pages on the UMLS homepage in the next few weeks. Keep current with UMLS changes and news by subscribing to the UMLS News RSS feed.

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

UMLS® 2008AB Release Available. NLM Tech Bull. 2008 Nov-Dec; (365):e13.