Changes to the DeCS/MeSH data made during the annual update to 2023 from the year-end processing of MeSH are outlined below.

Changes to DeCS/MeSH Descriptors

For the 2023 edition, 31 MeSH and 2 DeCS descriptors in the English language were either modified or replaced by a more up-to-date one according to the current terminology.

310 new descriptors were added by MeSH and 2 by DeCS for the 2022 edition.

New descriptors per Category

Category	Number of new descriptors
[A] Anatomy	9
[B] Organisms	7
[C] Diseases	72
[D] Chemicals and Drugs	35
[E] Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques, and Equipment	16
[F] Psychiatry and Psychology	23
[G] Phenomena and Processes	8
[H] Disciplines and Occupations	0
[HP] Homeopathy	0
[I] Anthropology, Education, Sociology, and Social Phenomena	15
[J] Technology, Industry, and Agriculture	4
[K] Humanities	2
[L] Information Science	7
[M] Named Groups	37
[MT] Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine	0
[N] Health Care	29
[SH] Science and Health	0
[SP] Public Health	2
[V] Publication Characteristics	0
[VS] Surveillance in Public Health	0
[Z] Geographicals	2

MeSH special projects

As part of ongoing projects, new MeSH descriptors were included as achievements, such as:

New and updated concepts for Population Groups

• Caribbean People
• Central American People
• South American People

New and updated concepts for Workers

• Combat Medics
• Gynecologists
• Obstetricians
• Paramedics
• Traditional Medicine Practitioners

New and updated concepts for Social Determinants of Health

• Residential Segregation
• Resource-Limited Settings
• Socioeconomic Disparities in Health

New and updated concepts for Covid-19

• COVID-19 Drug Treatment
• COVID-19 Serotherapy
• Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome

Entry Combination Revisions

The NLM has been retrospectively replacing certain MeSH heading/subheading combinations, known as Entry Combinations, with the new pre-coordinated MeSH heading.

There are four new pre-coordinated descriptors included in the 2023 edition:

Entry Combination	Replaced-by heading
COVID-19/drug therapy	COVID-19 Drug Treatment
Elbow/injuries	Elbow Injuries
Elbow Joint/injuries	Elbow Injuries
Penis/transplantation	Penile Transplantation
Suicide/prevention & control	Suicide Prevention

Watch here a webinar that summarizes the changes for the 2022 MeSH.

You can download DeCS/MeSH 2023 from the License form on the For Developers page.

Source:

MEDLINE and MeSH Data Changes 2023 – NLM Tech Bull. 2021 2022 Nov-Dec;(449):e6. Consult here.

Adapted by: Sector of Terminologies and Classifications in Health – TCS – BIREME/PAHO/WHO Updated: February, 2023.