Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Here’s how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

This is a preview of updates coming to the Technical Bulletin's website in April 2026. Return to current site.
Read more about the modernization release schedule in this announcement.
Comment via the yellow feedback button in the lower right hand corner of the page. Contact the NLM Help Desk with any questions or concerns.

This is archived content.

Links may have become inactive over time. Visit Archive-It   to find the original published layout.

What's New for 2007 MeSH®

Schulman J. What's New for 2007 MeSH. NLM Tech Bull. 2006 Nov-Dec;(353):e2.

November 16, 2006 [posted]

This article highlights the additions and changes in 2007 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).

Overview of Vocabulary Development and Changes for 2007 MeSH

  • 494 Descriptors were added for 2007 MeSH
  • 99 Descriptor terms were replaced with more up-to-date terminology
  • 22 Descriptors were deleted

Totals by Type of Terminology

  • 24,357 Descriptors
  • 83 Subheadings/Qualifiers
  • 164,331 Supplementary Concept Records (SCRs)

New 2007 Descriptors by Tree Category


Anatomy [A] 23
Organisms [B] 61
Diseases [C] 70
Chemicals and Drugs [D] 255
Analytical, Diagnosis and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment [E] 35
Psychiatry and Psychology [F] 6
Biological Sciences [G] 53
Physical Sciences [H] 7
Anthropology, Education, Sociology and Social Phenomena [I] 3
Technology and Food and Beverages [J] 7
Information Science [L] 1
Persons [M] 1
Health Care [N] 1


The total by Tree Category exceeds 494 because some descriptors occur in more than one category.

2007 MeSH is available for downloading from the Web site and can be searched and viewed using the MeSH Browser.

Organisms

Thirty-one new virus descriptors were added and 27 descriptors were replaced with more up-to-date terminology. Numerous descriptors for specific DNA viruses were added.

Drugs and Chemicals

About half of the new descriptors in 2007 MeSH are drugs or chemicals. Of those, 136 are categorized as amino acids, peptides, and proteins (D12). Many descriptors for apolipoproteins, interleukin receptors, and many specific keratins were added.