The separately downloadable UMLS dictionary formatted for cTAKES [1], not counting medication names (RxNorm), is in a database [2]. So you could add to that database whatever terms you want.
The RxNorm dictionary is in a Lucene index (though there is a related jira ticket open so that maybe it will end up in the same database) so to add to the currently used medications list, would probably best be done programmatically using the Lucene API (someone with more Lucene end-user experience, please chime in) cTAKES provides a way to look up terms in a flatfile dictionary that you would provide. See the files that end with .csv within ctakes-dictionary-lookup-res\src\main\resources\org\apache\ctakes\dictionary\lookup The flatfile is not used directly in conjunction with the database file of terms from UMLS – to use the two together, you would have one annotator configured to use that flatfile for the dictionary, and have a second annotator configured to use the database file. Some things to be aware of if you went that route - each note would be processed by both, and if you had terms in your flatfile that duplicated what was in the database, you would end up with double annotations - each note would be processed in effect twice (not by the entire pipeline thankfully) so it would be a slower than just using one. As far as something being annotated that you don't want annotated, within the LookupDesc*xml file being used, there can be an excludeList to have "men" no longer annotated. See LookupDesc_DrugNER.xml for an example of using excludeList. Any improvements or even written steps on any of the above would be a great contribution. -- James [1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/ctakesresources/files/ [2] the relative path to the hsql db is resources\org\apache\ctakes\dictionary\lookup\umls2011ab From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lee, Richard A. [USA] Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2014 5:01 PM To: [email protected] Subject: How to augment/modify UMLS resources? Howdy, all. I’ve got a lot of experience with various commercial extraction tools, but I’m new to cTAKES and UIMA, so please bear with me. I am able to use my UMLS credentials to process documents, and the results are good. But there are a few things I wish to change in the medfacts.types.Concept and AnatomicalSiteMention areas, for starters. For example, while it annotates “orbicularis oculi” as a concept, it does not annotate “musculus orbicularis oculi”, “septum orbital”, or “oculi medialis”. It annotates “ulceration”, “perforation”, and “corneal perforation” but not “corneal ulceration”. It annotates “men” (as in “Chinese men”) as a “problem”. It annotates “ER” (ie Emergency Room) as an AnatomicalSiteReference. So, the question becomes, how do I address these? Do I need to somehow re-generate (with changes) the UMLS data files, probably using Luke or some such? That seems a bit crude. Is there a clean way to supplement those data files instead to achieve the desired changes? Thanks in advance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Richard A Lee || Lead Associate / Senior Ontologist || [email protected] || 571-482-7809
