Is it possible to get a complete list of medical devices through OpenFDA?

Question

I was trying to get a complete list of medical devices through openFDA, but then I came to realize that through that data set the list can never be complete, since I can only get devices involved in a event report.

If I run https://api.fda.gov/device/recall.json?count=openfda.device_name.exact I will never get, for example, a tongue depressor, if a tongue depressor has never been involved in a adverse event.

I was going to try by getting device's categories, such as https://api.fda.gov/device/classification.json?&count=medical_specialty_description and then running queries to get devices by medical_specialty_description or similar field, but I'm still reading the site's documentation, trying to learn about heir API and lists of terms available for searches

How, if it is possible, can a get a list of medical devices permitted by the FDA by using openFDA?

Answer 1

It doesn't look like this information is available through openFDA. You might want to file a feature request on GitHub.

Answer 2

You may want to look into AccessGUDID, from the National Library of Medicine.