Medicine: indicate which active ingredient is the main one

[ColinMaudry]

In the context of the LIFT Brazil project and the platform Medicamentos Transparentes developed by Transparencia Brasil, the need to flag which active ingredient is the main one arose.

After a short research, it seems that the main active ingredient is not the most concentrated one.

cc @yolile @talitalobo

[ColinMaudry]

I don't love boolean fields, but adding a mainActiveIngredient or main field to ActiveIngredient would do?

"activeIngredients": [
          {
            "name": "acetylcysteinum",
            "strength": {
              "unit": {
                "scheme": "UNCEFACT",
                "id": "g/l"
              },
              "value": 100,
              "main": true
            }
          }
]

[ColinMaudry]

I wish I could find a source to validate the term "main active ingredient" or "primary active ingredient", but none of the articles I find mention a hierarchy between the active pharmaceutical ingredients (or API, this term is used a lot).

[jpmckinney]

Does the platform only ever track "main" active ingredients, or does it track both "main" and "non-main" ingredients?

[ColinMaudry]

The source data, to be converted to OCDS, is made of free text descriptions. In some of them, a difference is made. Example:

The first line says:

Ezetimiba [main API], Composition: associated with Rosuvastatina [other API], Strength: 10 mg [Ezetimiba] + 20 mg [Rosuvastatina]

Edit: the source data for this is an item catalog called CATMAT (download)

[jpmckinney]

Let's use main as a local additional field. If this use case re-occurs, we can formalize it in the extension.

[ColinMaudry]

what do you mean with "local"?

[jpmckinney]

As in the publication adds the field – the standard and extension don't add the field until we have more evidence/demand.