Company coding of spontaneously received and investigationally received adverse drug reaction reports is nonstandardized, and each company is free to use whichever thesaurus it feels is appropriate. To obtain an impression of what coding thesauri are being used, 25 companies were surveyed in April of 1984 and 53 companies were surveyed in March of 1985. Results from both surveys suggest COSTART and the WHO as the major thesauri used by respondents. Neither thesaurus is adequate in its original form, and the major modification to both are the inclusion of new terms.
