Wildcard searches

Question

First time using the OpenFDA API.

It seems like wildcards are not permitted in queries, so I was curious how one might go about generating data such as the count of specific AEs by generic_name of the medication?

Answer 1

You cannot do a two-way table where you get a list of adverse events by drug using the current openFDA API.

What you can do is find most of* this information in a two step process which can of course be automated:

1. Get a list of drugs by generic name: https://api.fda.gov/drug/event.json?search=&count=patient.drug.openfda.generic_name.exact&limit=1000
2. Get a list of adverse events that have shown up in event reports that contained that generic drug. For example, ASPIRIN: https://api.fda.gov/drug/event.json?search=patient.drug.openfda.generic_name.exact:ASPIRIN&count=patient.reaction.reactionmeddrapt.exact&limit=1000

* "most of" because these count queries will return only the top 1000 results

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Another route if your looking for a quick way to research is search the generic name on researchae.com then look at the stats tab and graphs for more detailed counts. For example a search of the generic name for Coreg results the following:

http://www.researchae.com/drugevent?from_date=2004-01-01&to_date=2014-11-30&from_age=&to_age=&search=&country=GLOBALLY&patientsex=&manufacturername=&drugbrandname=&druggenericname=carvedilol&medicinalproduct=&reactionmeddrapt=&drugclass=&drugindication=&indsubmit=&productndc=&safetyreportid=

Remember though there are different ways to search and you might want to add some additional filter to get to the data you are looking for.