Thesauri on STN: A useful tool to help ensure comprehensive searching Science IP®, The CAS Search Service. Search requests are often presented in the form of the effect of A on B, where A and B are terms representing concepts. Usually these concepts are described using a variety of synonyms. For comprehensive searching, it is recommended to include multiple synonyms in your strategy for each concept, as appropriate. STN online thesauri are useful in many STN databases to find terms and explore synonyms to strengthen your search strategy. The thesauri are arranged in hierarchical order. You can expand on a search term of interest to find narrow terms (NT), broad terms (BT), use for terms (UF), related terms (RT), etc. Table: Examples of some of the online thesauri on STN for biomedical searches Topic Database Field name Chemistry ZCAPlus lexicon Controlled terms (/CT) Note: Zero hr connect time fees. Biomedical MEDLINE Controlled terms (/CT) Note: known as Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). Chemical name (/CN) Biomedical EMBASE Controlled terms (/CT) Note: known as the Emtree thesaurus. The example shows how synonyms can be found by expanding on a term such as diabetes in the controlled term field (/CT) in ZCAPlus. Diabetes/CT has two associated terms (AT). When you EXPAND on the associated terms, you get the heading term in the thesaurus, in this case, Diabetes mellitus (E14). Example: Expand on Diabetes/CT to find the current heading for Diabetes which is Diabetes Mellitus. Then expand on that term using E E14+ALL. => FILE ZCAPLUS => EXPAND DIABETES/CT E# FREQUENCY AT TERM -- --------- -- ---- E1 0 1 DIABATIC/CT E2 0 2 DIABATIC POTENTIAL/CT E3 10515 2 --> DIABETES/CT E4 0 2 DIABETES (L) INSIPIDUS/CT E5 3089 16 DIABETES INSIPIDUS/CT E6 0 2 DIABETES INSIPIDUS (L) GENETIC, NEPHROGENIC/CT E7 0 2 DIABETES INSIPIDUS (L) HEREDITARY HYPOTHALAMIC/CT E8 0 2 DIABETES INSIPIDUS (L) HYPOTHALAMIC/CT E9 0 2 DIABETES INSIPIDUS (L) NEPHROGENIC/CT E10 0 2 DIABETES INSIPIDUS (L) NEPHROGENIC, GENETIC/CT E11 0 2 DIABETES INSIPIDUS (L) NEPHROGENIC, X-LINKED/CT E12 0 2 DIABETES INSIPIDUS (L) NEUROHYPOPHYSEAL/CT => E E3+ALL E13 10515 --> Diabetes/CT HNTE Valid heading during volumes 1-75 (1907-1971) only. E14 112707 NEW Diabetes mellitus/CT ********** END ********** => E E14+ALL EXPAND+ALL reveals related terms, except for Link Terms. E15 60939 BT3 Disease, animal/CT E16 1710 BT2 Endocrine system disease/CT E17 60939 BT4 Disease, animal/CT E18 1837 BT3 Abdominal disease/CT E19 60939 BT4 Disease, animal/CT E20 460 BT3 Digestive system disease/CT E21 1105 BT2 Pancreatic disease/CT E22 61 BT1 Pancreatic islet of Langerhans disease/CT E23 112707 --> Diabetes mellitus/CT HNTE Valid heading during volume 1 (1907) to present. E24 10515 OLD Diabetes/CT E25 UF Diabetes melittis/CT E26 UF Diabetes melitus/CT E27 UF Diabetes mellitis/CT E28 1226 NT1 Diabetic angiopathy/CT E29 5633 NT1 Diabetic nephropathy/CT E30 9147 NT1 Type 1 diabetes/CT E31 25427 NT1 Type 2 diabetes/CT E32 15 RT Aceruloplasminemia/CT E33 2277 RT Advanced glycosylation end products/CT E34 337 RT Aldose reductase inhibitors/CT E35 40889 RT Antidiabetic agents/CT E36 RT Cataract (L) diabetic/CT E37 RT Diagnosis (L) diabetes mellitus/CT E38 2337 RT Glycation/CT E39 20218 RT Hyperglycemia/CT E40 1240 RT Lipodystrophy/CT E41 444 RT Polyuria/CT E42 RTCS Fructosamine/CT E43 RTCS Glucagon-like peptide I/CT E44 RTCS Glycogen synthase kinase 3/CT E45 RTCS Hemoglobin A1c/CT E46 RTCS Human insulin/CT E47 RTCS Insulin/CT E48 RTCS Protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B/CT ********** END ********** By expanding on Diabetes Mellitis/CT (E14) we find the Related Term Antidiabetic Agents, a frequently appearing controlled term. If we expand on Antidiabetic Agents (E35) at, we can see terms relating to that heading which may be useful in our strategy. => E E35+ALL E49 0 BT2 Bioactive compounds (non-CA heading)/CT E50 4184 BT2 Health products/CT E51 44886 BT1 Drugs/CT E52 40889 --> Antidiabetic agents/CT HNTE Valid heading during volume 126 (1997) to present. NOTE This heading is used only for drugs used for the therapy of diabetes mellitus. Studies on drugs for the treatment of diabetes insipidus are indexed at the disease heading. E53 453 OLD Antidiabetics/CT E54 3793 OLD Antidiabetics and Hypoglycemics/CT E55 UF Anti-diabetes drugs/CT E56 UF Antidiabetes/CT E57 UF Antidiabetic/CT E58 UF Antidiabetic drugs/CT E59 UF Antihyperglycemic/CT E60 UF Antihyperglycemic agents/CT E61 UF Antihyperglycemics/CT E62 UF Euglycemic agent/CT E63 UF Hypoglycemic/CT E64 UF Hypoglycemic agents/CT E65 UF Hypoglycemics/CT E66 0 NT1 Biguanide/CT E67 0 NT1 Gliclazide/CT E68 0 NT1 Metformin/CT E69 0 NT1 Pioglitazone/CT E70 0 NT1 Thiazolidinedione/CT E71 112707 RT Diabetes mellitus/CT E72 20218 RT Hyperglycemia/CT E73 57368 RT Metabolism/CT E74 4808 RT Sulfonylureas/CT E75 RTCS Acarbose/CT E76 RTCS Glibenclamide/CT E77 RTCS Glipizide/CT E78 RTCS Human insulin/CT E79 RTCS Insulin/CT E80 RTCS Nateglinide/CT E81 RTCS Rosiglitazone/CT E82 RTCS Tolbutamide/CT E83 RTCS Troglitazone/CT ********** END ********** Using multiple thesauri increases your chances of including relevant synonyms on a topic. You can create a comprehensive list of terms and synonyms by incorporating your results from EXPANDing on terms in a thesauri. STN provides access to key science, technology and patent databases and is the premier single source for the world’s disclosed scientific and technical research. STN databases can be accessed through STN Express, STN on the Web and STN Easy. Databases with thesauri can be found by looking at the database summary sheet http://cas.org/support/stngen/dbss/index.html under Features, Thesaurus. .