Search Support FAQ
5. When/Why do you need to use brackets (parentheses)?
Pharmaprojects uses Boolean logic, and in general brackets are used whenever there is a mixture of AND OR expressions in the search logic. The brackets tell the application which order to process the search criteria.
For example, if you wanted to find all anticancer agents in development by Merck & Co or GlaxoSmithKline, you would construct the search as follows:
| Hits | And/Or | (... | Group | Expression | Value | ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7894 | Therapy Grouping | = | Anticancer Products | |||
| 139 | AND | ( | Company R&D Pipeline | = | Merck & Co | |
| 201 | OR | Company R&D Pipeline | = | GlaxoSmithKline | ) | |
| =54 |
Looking at the results table shows that this search is correct.
What happens if the brackets aren't included?
| Hits | And/Or | (... | Group | Expression | Value | ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7894 | Therapy Grouping | = | Anticancer Products | |||
| 139 | AND | Company R&D Pipeline | = | Merck & Co | ||
| 201 | OR | Company R&D Pipeline | = | GlaxoSmithKline | ||
| =224 |
Looking at the results table shows that the search has found all anticancer drugs in development by Merck, and separately anything under development by GSK including the following false hits.
| Generic name | Originator | Licensee | Any Therapy description |
|---|---|---|---|
| RC-529 | GlaxoSmithKline | Sanofi-Aventis | Immunostimulant , other |
| maribavir | GlaxoSmithKline | ViroPharma | Antiviral, other |
| farglitazar | GlaxoSmithKline | Hepatoprotective | |
| hepatitis-B vaccine-3, GSK | GlaxoSmithKline |
Recombinant vaccine Prophylactic vaccine |
|
| influenza vaccine , ID | GlaxoSmithKline | Prophylactic vaccine |
Note, there is a slightly different story if you are searching using any of the linked fields..
Linked fields are those that combine like terms e.g.
Therapy and therapy status
Indication and indication status
Country and Country status
Major event - Major Event Date - Major details. It helps to think of these as terms that read across in a single line in the drug profile.
When searching using linked terms, you need to ensure that the terms are adjacent to each other in the search string and that they are formed as pairs or couplets.
For example, to search for products that are in Phase I or Phase II trials for breast cancer, the search needs to be constructed as follows:
| Hits | And/Or | (... | Group | Expression | Value | ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 587 | ( | Any Indication | = | Breast cancer | ||
| 1394 | AND | Indication Status | = | Phase I Clinical Trial | ) | |
| 587 | OR | ( | Any Indication | = | Breast cancer | |
| 1788 | AND | Indication Status | = | Phase II Clinical Trial | ) | |
| =175 |
But according to standard Boolean logic I should be able to construct the search like this instead..
| Hits | And/Or | (... | Group | Expression | Value | ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 587 | Any Indication | = | Breast cancer | |||
| 1394 | AND | ( | Indication Status | = | Phase I Clinical Trial | |
| 1788 | OR | Indication Status | = | Phase II Clinical Trial | ) | |
| =208 |
This search is looking for all drugs that are in development for breast cancer, and that are in Phase I or II trials for any indication.
This search is not specifically linking breast cancer Indication to Phase.
Therefore if the search is constructed incorrectly it will result in false hits including
| Generic Name | Any Indication | Any Indication Status |
|---|---|---|
| anastrozole |
Cancer, breast Infertility, female |
Launched Phase II Clinical Trial |
| bevacizumab |
Cancer, colorectal Cancer, lung, non-smallcell Cancer, breast Cancer, renal Cancer, pancreatic Cancer, prostate Cancer, ovarian Cancer, brain Cancer, lung, small cell |
Launched Launched Pre-registration Phase III Clinical Trial Phase III Clinical Trial Phase III Clinical Trial Phase III Clinical Trial Phase II Clinical Trial Preclinical |
| avorelin |
Cancer, prostate Endometriosis Cancer, breast |
Phase II Clinical Trial Preclinical Preclinical |
| bexarotene , oral, Ligand |
Cancer, lymphoma, T-cell Cancer, sarcoma, Kaposi`s Cancer, breast Cancer, lung, non-smallcell Cancer, head and neck Cancer, renal Cancer, ovarian Psoriasis Cancer, leukaemia, acute myelogenous |
Launched Phase III Clinical Trial Phase III Clinical Trial Phase III Clinical Trial Phase II Clinical Trial Phase II Clinical Trial Phase II Clinical Trial Phase II Clinical Trial Phase I Clinical Trial |
| capecitabine |
Cancer, breast Cancer, colorectal Cancer, gastrointestinal,stomach Cancer, pancreatic Cancer, renal |
Launched Launched Launched Phase III Clinical Trial Phase II Clinical Trial |
In order to avoid getting false hits with searches involving linked fields, you need to consider each indication and indication status as a separate search term. E.g. you need to tell the application that you want to find a line in the drug profile that reads from left to right:
(Indication) ( status)
Breast cancer Phase I Clinical Trial
Or
(Indication) ( status)
Breast cancer Phase II Clinical Trial
Therefore the correct way to construct the search is
| Hits | And/Or | (... | Group | Expression | Value | ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 587 | ( | Any Indication | = | Breast cancer | ||
| 1394 | AND | Indication Status | = | Phase I Clinical Trial | ) | |
| 587 | OR | ( | Any Indication | = | Breast cancer | |
| 1788 | AND | Indication Status | = | Phase II Clinical Trial | ) | |
| =175 |
