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United States National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health

Searching for Chemicals and Drugs

Use the Substance Name [nm] in PubMed for comprehensive chemical searching, whether the substance you are looking for is a MeSH heading or a Supplementary Concept Record (SCR).

Example: ketorolac [nm]

Note Note: Use text word [tw] searching or use Previous Indexing headings found on MeSH heading records in the MeSH Database for the years prior to the introduction of the chemical into the controlled vocabulary.

Note Note:

In the MeSH Database:

Chemicals, Drugs and Compounds listed as [Substance Name] are Supplementary Concepts (SCRs) only

In a MEDLINE citation:

Chemicals, Drugs and Compounds listed in a citation under Substances can be either MeSH terms (in which case, they are duplicated in the MeSH Term list) OR Supplementary Concepts (SCRs)

Search all substances (both SCRs and MHs) in PubMed using the search tag [nm]

Last updated: 21 December 2007
First published: 25 January 2006
Metadata| Permanence level: Permanence Not Guaranteed