Automatic annotation of ICD-to-MedDRA mappings with SKOS predicates

Robust alignments between ICD and MedDRA are essential to enable the secondary use of clinical data for pharmacovigilance research. UMLS makes available ICD-to-MedDRA mappings, but they are only poorly specified, which introduces difficulties when exploited in an automatic way. SKOS vocabulary can help achieve quality and machine-processable mappings. We have developed an algorithm based on several simple rules which annotates automatically ICD-to-MedDRA mappings with SKOS predicates. The method was tested and evaluated on a sample of ICD-10-to MedDRA mappings extracted from UMLS. The algorithm demonstrated satisfying performances, especially for skos:exactMatch properties, which suggests that automatic methods can be used to improve the quality of terminology mappings.