Information Management of Drug Drug Interactions Based on a Formal Representation

Hierarchical organization of information on drug-drug interactions is presented. The drug categories and drugs known to be involved in interactions are represented as nodes, and they are partly ordered according to inclusive relationships. Interactions among them are represented by a relation called the interacting relation. A partial ordering is defined on the solution set of the interacting relation based on the inclusive relationships among the nodes, and the set of the maximal elements is defined as the maximal interacting relation. These maximal elements are stored in a computer as explicit links joining the nodes, and during the process of interaction checking, they are superimposed on all the subordinate nodes. Thus possible interactions between given drugs can be found by applying the general rules of interactions. An experimental system is implemented based on this representational scheme, and the efficiency of the scheme as a basis of an advanced information management system for drug-drug interactions is discussed.