Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “MEDLINE”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources

Accessing MEDLINE from the dental office.

Electronic access to on-line information is now available for dentists. One such resource is MEDLINE, a database of more than 7,500,000 biomedical references indexed by the National Library of Medicine. MEDLINE searching can be performed on-line or locally using a CD-ROM drive. Dentists should evaluate equipment requirements, availability of training, extent of the bibliographic database, ease of using the searching software and adequacy of documentation before selecting a mode of MEDLINE access.

CD-ROM↗

Impact of SciELO and MEDLINE indexing on submissions to Jornal de Pediatria.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of SciELO and MEDLINE indexing on the number of articles submitted to Jornal de Pediatria. METHODS: Analysis of total article submission, submission of articles from foreign countries and acceptance figures in the following periods: stage I - pre-website (Jan 2000-Mar 2001); stage II - website (Apr 2001-Jul 2002); stage III - SciELO (Aug 2002-Aug 2003); stage IV - MEDLINE (Sep 2003-Dec 2004). RESULTS: There was a significant trend toward linear increase in the number of submissions along the study period (p = 0.009). The number of manuscripts submitted in stages I through IV was 184, 240, 297, and 482, respectively. The number of submissions was similar in stages I and II (p = 0.148), but statistically higher in Stage III (p < 0.001 vs. Stage I and p = 0.006 vs. Stage II) and Stage IV (p < 0.001 vs. stages I and II, and p < 0.05 vs. stage III). The rate of article acceptance decreased during the study period. The number of original articles published has been stable since the 2001 March/April issue (n = 10), when the journal reached a printed page limit, leading to stricter judgment criteria and a relative decrease in acceptance rate. The number of foreign submissions in stages I through IV was 1, 2, zero and 17, respectively, with p < 0.001 for the comparison of stage IV with previous stages. CONCLUSIONS: SciELO indexing was associated with an increase in Brazilian manuscript submissions to Jornal de Pediatria, whereas MEDLINE indexing led to an increase in both Brazilian and foreign submissions.

Abstracting and Indexing↗

Using the MEDLINE database to study the concept of urinary tract infections in different domains of medicine.

As a way of exploring differences between medical domains regarding management of urinary tract infections, we investigated the MEDLINE database for differences in indexing patterns. Further, our intention was to assess the MEDLINE database as a source for studying medical domains. We examined the use of main headings, subheadings and the level of main headings in six medical domains that manage urinary tract infections. Many intuitive but also some counterintuitive results were found indicating that the MEDLINE database is difficult to use for studying medical domains mainly due to unclear semantics both in the headings and the indexing process, which results in variability in indexing. This variability probably hides significant results. We also conclude that the differences found indicate that in addition to differences between domains, there are also large variations within domains.

Abstracting and Indexing↗

Three decades of the Ceylon Medical Journal--analysis using MEDLINE (PubMed).

INTRODUCTION: The Ceylon Medical Journal (CMJ) is the only Sri Lankan medical journal that is indexed in MEDLINE (PubMed). Publications in the CMJ from 1965 March to 2001 December were analysed using the PubMed interface of MEDLINE. METHOD: Using PubMed we downloaded the CMJ bibliography in MEDLINE format. Important tagged fields were written to a Microsoft-Access database using a PubMed Grabber/Analyser program. The analysis was done using Access-SQL and PubMed queries. RESULTS: There were 1472 citations by 1373 authors. 944 authors had only one and 176 had two articles. The top 10 authors contributed 8% and the top 25, 15.4% of the articles. Publications types were: 68.5% 'journal articles', 10.4% letters, 4.2% historical articles and 4.1% reviews. Controlled clinical trials, randomised controlled trials and clinical trials together totalled only 39 (2.1%). Articles were classified using 2 to 44 medical subject headings (MeSH; average 11.4, mode 9) from the MeSH vocabulary. CMJ articles classified using broad MeSH categories were (top five): infections 370(15 %), pathological conditions signs and symptoms 266( 10.8%), haemic, lymphatic and immunologic 199 (7.7%), endocrine, nutritional and metabolic 189 (7.7%), neoplasms 179(7.3%). DISCUSSION: For 938 (68%) authors, publishing in the CMJ was a one time affair. The top 50 authors contributed nearly a quarter (23.2%). A product of this research is an off-line CMJ searching system from 1965 to 2001 with menu driven search facilities which will be a useful tool for researchers.

Abstracting and Indexing↗

Designing a search strategy to identify and retrieve articles on evidence-based health care using MEDLINE.

The practice of evidence-based health care requires that information on methodology be identified from databases such as MEDLINE. Up until this year there have been no designated medical subject headings (MeSH) for evidence-based health care. 'EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE' appears as a MeSH term from 1997. The absence of designated MeSH for this concept prior to 1997 provides a challenge to the searcher. This paper describes the creation of a MEDLINE search strategy to retrieve articles on the methods of evidence-based health care published prior to the introduction of the new term, where an optimal combination of free-text and MeSH terms is required to identify relevant material. The study examines both free-text and subject heading searching and attempts an optimal balance of sensitivity and specificity. It begins by examining separate free-text and subject heading searches. Sensitivity of the subject heading search was 33% and specificity 80%, while the free-text search produced a sensitivity of 50% and a specificity of 67%. The final strategy, combining both approaches, was more successful with sensitivity reaching between 82 and 90% and specificity 83%. It is therefore possible to devise a search strategy to retrieve articles on the methods of evidence-based health care with relatively successful rates of sensitivity and specificity. The limitations of MEDLINE, however, necessitate the use of additional approaches in identifying articles on the methods of evidence-based health care.

Evidence-Based Medicine↗

[Scientific production of Spanish professionals in primary health care (1990-1997). A bibliometric analysis from MEDLINE].

OBJECTIVES: To describe the scientific production of primary care (PC) spanish professionals, during the current decade, using MEDLINE database. To identify which factors would explain the differences in the scientific production of PC professionals among Spanish autonomous communities (AACC). DESIGN: Retrospective, descriptive and analytical study. It has been designed a search strategy that will be used to retrieve this production from 1990 to 1997. MATERIAL: 1014 documents published in 44 journals during the analysed period. MEASUREMENTS: Chronological evolution, authors, institutional addresses, geographic distribution, journals and thematic areas of this scientific production were analysed. The scientific production of any AACC was studied according to its socio-economic and human resources data. By uni and multivariant analysis we studied if the differences in PC professional's scientific production among the AACC are explained by socio-economic variables, available human resources and the degree of implementation of the new PC model in any AACC. MAIN RESULTS: During the studied period, it was detected from MEDLINE an increase in the scientific production of the spanish PC professionals, either in articles published by Atención Primaria journal (73.7%), as in other Spanish journals (22.6%) and non-Spanish (3.7%) journals. In 71.9% of the documents the first author comes from a primary care centre. The main thematic areas treated in the articles are family practice and primary care topics, but a quarter of them tackled clinical topics. The only variable that explained the differences in the scientific production of these professionals among AACC was the bigger or lower increment of people covered by the new PC model in any AACC during the analysed period. This variable only explained 20% of the variability. The level of provincial income was significantly and inversely correlated with its scientific production. CONCLUSIONS: It can be set the suitability of MEDLINE for bibliometric studies of the scientific production of the spanish PC professionals. In global terms it has been detected an increment of this production. The degree of implementation of the new PC model in any AACC, has partially explained the differences in the scientific production of their PC professionals.

Abstracting and Indexing↗

The art and science of searching MEDLINE to answer clinical questions. Finding the right number of articles.

The current medical environment makes information retrieval a matter of practical importance for clinicians. Many avenues present themselves to the clinician, but here we focus on MEDLINE by summarizing the current state of the art and providing an innovative approach for skill enhancement. Because new search engines appear rapidly, we focus on generic principles that can be easily adapted to various systems, even those not yet available. We propose an idealized classification system for the results of a MEDLINE search. Type A searches produce a few articles of high quality that are directly focused on the immediate question. Type B searches yield a large number of articles, some more relevant than others. Type C searches produce few or no articles, and those that are located are not germane. Providing that relevant, high-quality articles do exist, type B and C searches may often be improved with attention to search technique. Problems stem from poor recall and poor precision. The most daunting task lies in achieving the balance between too few and too many articles. By providing a theoretical framework and several practical examples, we prepare the searcher to overcome the following barriers: a) failure to begin with a well-built question; b) failure to use the Medical Subject Headings; c) failure to leverage the relationship between recall and precision; and d) failure to apply proper limits to the search. Thought and practice will increase the utility and enjoyment of searching MEDLINE.

Clinical Medicine↗

Language barriers and bibliographic retrieval effectiveness: use of MEDLINE by French-speaking end users.

OBJECTIVE: A study was conducted to determine if bibliographic retrieval performed by French-speaking end users is impaired by English language interfaces. The American database MEDLINE on CD-ROM was used as a model. METHODS: A survey of self-administered questionnaires was performed at two libraries of Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2 University, during a two-month period in 1997. Three study groups were constituted: MEDLINE / Ovid end users, MEDLINE / Ovid librarian-mediated users, and Pascal, a French bibliographic database, end users. RESULTS: Among 191 respondents, only 22% thought English was an obstacle to their bibliographic retrieval. However, the research software was generally underused and the quality of the retrieval weak. The differences were statistically significant between users trained by librarians and the self-trained group, the former performing better. CONCLUSION: Special efforts need to be made to develop curriculum training programs for computerized bibliographic retrieval in medical schools, regardless of the native language of the student.

CD-ROM↗

Analysis of free MEDLINE on the WWW.

In the paper, a survey of free MEDLINE access on the WWW is given. We compared five different vendors that provide free unlimited access to MEDLINE. The comparison of different search parameters was made: number of search statements, number of search fields, ability to combine search statements, number of search limits. The possibilities of using MESH thesaurus during the search are also explored. At last, we compared and evaluated the results of two search queries, obtained with searching MEDLINE, provided by five vendors mentioned above.

Evaluation Studies as Topic↗

Benchmarking the dental implant evidence on MEDLINE.

The purpose of this study was to estimate the quantity of dental implant literature available on MEDLINE for evidence-based clinical decision-making and to identify its location. A search strategy based on Medical Subject Headings for dental implants was developed to examine MEDLINE using the Ovid Web Gateway search engine. Sensitive and specific methodologic search filters identified 4 categories of information: etiology, diagnosis, therapy, and prognosis. The results were then subdivided by year to identify trends and sorted to identify the sources of publications. The searches identified 4,655 articles published in English between 1989 and 1999 on human dental implants on MEDLINE. The mean number of articles (+/- SD) per year ranged from 15 +/- 11 for specific searches to 107 +/- 50 for sensitive searches. The number of articles increased by 14% to 43% each year for the sensitive search. When subdivided by clinical category, the mean numbers of articles per year for sensitive and specific searches were, respectively: diagnosis 12 +/- 7.5 and 1.5 +/- 1.6, etiology 58 +/- 33 and 1.9 +/- 2.5, therapy 23 +/- 15 and 0.3 +/- 0.5, and prognosis 67 +/- 33 and 12 +/- 8.3. Four dental journals account for approximately half of these publications. These results provide 6 key central findings: (1) there appears to be a substantial literature of clinically relevant information on implants upon which to base clinical decisions; (2) the implant literature is significantly biased toward articles addressing prognosis; (3) to stay current, one would need to read between 1 and 2 articles per week 52 weeks per year, and this number increases significantly each year; (4) approximately 50% of the articles were published in 4 journals, whereas the remainder reside in approximately 97 other journals, making it difficult to stay current; (5) these trends reaffirm the need for lifelong learning; (6) these trends also suggest the need for computer-based clinical knowledge systems.

Analysis of Variance↗

Evidence-based dentistry: Part II. Searching for answers to clinical questions: how to use MEDLINE.

The ability to conduct efficient literature searches is fundamental to the practice of evidence-based dentistry. In the second part of this series on evidence-based dentistry, strategic literature search techniques are discussed. MEDLINE, because of its breadth, depth and continuous maintenance by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), is the best source of evidence for health care. Although there are many gateways to MEDLINE, this paper highlights the user-friendly versions of MEDLINE offered free on the Internet by the NLM. The use of well-established search tactics and the unique features of the NLM sites facilitate rapid, effective literature searches.

Canada↗

Taking advantage of the explosion of systematic reviews: an efficient MEDLINE search strategy.

CONTEXT: Systematic reviews of the literature are an important resource for clinicians. Unfortunately, the few published strategies for identifying these articles involve MEDLINE interfaces not widely available outside of academic medicine. In addition, the performance of these strategies is unknown. OBJECTIVE: To develop and evaluate a search strategy for identifying systematic reviews by using a publicly available MEDLINE interface (PubMed). DESIGN: Diagnostic test assessment. DEFINITION OF SENSITIVITY: The proportion of recognized systematic reviews (indexed in the Cochrane Library's Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness [DARE] or in ACP Journal Club) that are identified by the search strategy. DEFINITION OF POSITIVE PREDICTIVE VALUE: The proportion of articles identified in one of three sample searches (screening for colorectal cancer, thrombolytic therapy for venous thromboembolism, and treatment of dementia) that meet a minimum definition of systematic review. RESULTS: Our PubMed search strategy identified 93 of 100 DARE-indexed systematic reviews, a sensitivity of 93% (95% CI, 86% to 97%). For the sample of systematic reviews drawn from ACP Journal Club (n = 103), the PubMed strategy achieved a sensitivity of 97% (CI, 91% to 99%). When the three sample search strings were used, approximately 50% of retrieved articles met our minimum definition of systematic review. In contrast, the similar precision of a PubMed search restricted to review-type articles (as indexed by MEDLINE) was less than 10%. CONCLUSIONS: This search strategy identified most systematic reviews without over-whelming users with numerous false-positive results. A "single-click" filter based on this strategy is now available as part of the Clinical Queries feature of PubMed.

Evidence-Based Medicine↗

A bibliometric analysis of the pediatric dental literature in MEDLINE.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to estimate the availability of dental literature between 1989 and 1998 in seven disciplines within pediatric dentistry by using a bibliometric analysis on MEDLINE and to compare the results to that for adolescents and adults. METHODS: A search strategy was developed for each discipline incorporating dental vocabulary obtained from the MEDLINE Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) index. The number of articles retrieved from MEDLINE for adolescents and adults (> 13 yo) was compared to those for children (< 12 yo) in seven dental disciplines: dental implants, endodontics, oral medicine/radiology, oral surgery, orthodontics, periodontics, and restorative dentistry. RESULTS: There was an average of 8,097 dental articles published each year for the combined seven disciplines studied with an eight-fold range from 327 articles/year for endodontics to 2,765 articles/year for oral medicine/radiology. Of the mean number of articles published each year, 1,273 (16%) were limited to children, while the remaining 6,824 (84%) were on adolescents and adults. The number and percentage of children articles relative to the total number of publications on children ranged from 7 articles/year (1%) for dental implants to 528 articles/year (42%) for oral medicine/radiology. Implant dentistry publications increased the fastest, growing at an average yearly rate of 25%, followed by restorative dentistry (9%), endodontics (9%), oral surgery (6%), orthodontics (6%), periodontics (3%), and oral medicine/radiology (2%). CONCLUSIONS: There is a substantial amount of literature in pediatric dentistry upon which to base clinical decisions. Within this large body of literature, there is a significant amount of variation between the various dental disciplines examined. To stay current, one would need to read and absorb approximately 24 articles each week over 52 weeks per year in more than 75 different journals. Furthermore, the volume of literature is increasing each year, making access even more difficult. These trends suggest the need for computer systems that will facilitate access and retrieval of clinically useful literature.

Adolescent↗

Intelligent system for topic survey in MEDLINE by keyword recommendation and learning text characteristics.

We have implemented a system for assisting experts in selecting MEDLINE records for database construction purposes. This system has two specific features: The first is a learning mechanism which extracts characteristics in the abstracts of MEDLINE records of interest as patterns. These patterns reflect selection decisions by experts and are used for screening the records. The second is a keyword recommendation system which assists and supplements experts' knowledge in unexpected cases. Combined with a conventional keyword-based information retrieval system, this system may provide an efficient and comfortable environment for MEDLINE record selection by experts. Some computational experiments are provided to prove that this idea is useful.

Artificial Intelligence↗

MeSHmap: a text mining tool for MEDLINE.

Our research goal is to explore text mining from the metadata included in MEDLINE documents. We present MeSHmap our prototype text mining system that exploits the MeSH indexing accompanying MEDLINE records. MeSHmap supports searches via PubMed followed by user driven exploration of the MeSH terms and subheadings in the retrieved set. The potential of the system goes beyond text retrieval. It may also be used to compare entities of the same type such as pairs of drugs or pairs of procedures etc. In addition there is the potential to generate maps of entities (drugs or diseases etc.) such that the strength of the link between two entities in the map represents their similarity as expressed in the MeSH metadata of the MEDLINE documents. Higher level operators have been proposed to support these comparison and mapping functions. This paper motivates and describes MeSHmap. Future work will include user evaluations of the system.

Abstracting and Indexing↗

Automatic extraction of gene and protein synonyms from MEDLINE and journal articles.

Genes and proteins are often associated with multiple names, and more names are added as new functional or structural information is discovered. Because authors often alternate between these synonyms, information retrieval and extraction benefits from identifying these synonymous names. We have developed a method to extract automatically synonymous gene and protein names from MEDLINE and journal articles. We first identified patterns authors use to list synonymous gene and protein names. We developed SGPE (for synonym extraction of gene and protein names), a software program that recognizes the patterns and extracts from MEDLINE abstracts and full-text journal articles candidate synonymous terms. SGPE then applies a sequence of filters that automatically screen out those terms that are not gene and protein names. We evaluated our method to have an overall precision of 71% on both MEDLINE and journal articles, and 90% precision on the more suitable full-text articles alone

Electronic Data Processing↗

MEDLINE SDI services: how do they compare?

INTRODUCTION: Selective dissemination of information (SDI) services regularly alert users to new information on their chosen topics. This type of service can increase a user's ability to keep current and may have a positive impact on efficiency and productivity. Currently, there are many venues available where users can establish, store, and automatically run MEDLINE searches. PURPOSE: To describe, evaluate, and compare SDI services for MEDLINE. RESOURCES: The following SDI services were selected for this study: PubMed Cubby, BioMail, JADE, PubCrawler, OVID, and ScienceDirect. METHODOLOGY: Identical searches were established in four of the six selected SDI services and were run on a weekly basis over a period of two months. Eight search strategies were used in each system to test performance under various search conditions. The PubMed Cubby system was used as the baseline against which the other systems were compared. Other aspects were evaluated in all six services and include ease of use, frequency of results, ability to use MeSH, ability to access and edit existing search strategies, and ability to download to a bibliographic management program. RESULTS: Not all MEDLINE SDI services retrieve identical results, even when identical search strategies are used. This study also showed that the services vary in terms of features and functions offered.

Equipment Design↗

Comparing structural perspectives on Medical Informatics: EMBASE vs. MEDLINE.

Previous bibliometric analyses of Medical Informatics' internal structure used MEDLINE records as the unit of study. EMBASE, a product of Excerpta Medica, carries a wider international scope and offers complementary retrieval results to MEDLINE. Since much medical informatics critical thinking originated abroad and migrated to North America, this difference in coverage may also indicate a different perspective of "what constitutes medical informatics." Using traditional bibliometric and multivariate data analysis techniques, the present work examines EMBASE indexing records for the same 1995-1999 time frame as earlier MEDLINE studies to identify and compare structural features of the field.

Abstracting and Indexing↗