Software to Supplement the FDA Medical Device Reports Search Engine

Abstract

Currently, the FDA's Medical Device Reporting (MDR) search engine provides an effective, but time consuming, method to retrieve reports specified by the user through keyword searches. This method returns link lists by MDR numbers, which then have to be individually downloaded to obtain the text. There is a need for a faster method to retrieve information from the FDA's database of MDR documents. The software language PERL has been used to create a program to automate the prolonged procedures of retrieving, saving, and printing all documents resulting from the search. This article describes a PERL script, “getmdr”, that performs those functions for a user with access to UNIX, a web browser, and the Internet. A thorough explanation and a hard copy of the script are provided.