Evaluation of three manual drug information retrieval systems for investigational antineoplastic drugs.

The manual drug information retrieval systems, de Haen's Drugs in Use, Iowa Drug Information Service (IDIS), and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (IPA), were evaluated to determine their usefulness as sources of drug information for investigational antineoplastic drugs during the years 1980-81. During both years, de Haen's provided the greatest number of antineoplastic drug citations, IPA the least. Concerning qualitative analysis, (the ability of the information systems to provide citations in seven subject areas for the five drugs), IDIS was found to have the greatest overall utility and was statistically different from IPA in many subject areas. IPA provided few citations in the seven subject areas for the five drugs. On pairwise analysis, no differences emerged between IDIS and de Haen's. Commonly available manual drug information retrieval systems such as IDIS and de Haen's appear to be useful sources of information for investigational antineoplastic drugs.