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PubMed
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| Contact | |
|---|---|
| Research center | United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) |
| Release date | January 1996 |
| Access | |
| Website | pubmed |
This article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2025) |
PubMed is an openly accessible, free database which includes primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez system of information retrieval.[1]
From 1971 to 1997, online access to the MEDLINE database was provided via computer, phone lines primarily through institutional facilities, such as university libraries.[2] PubMed, first released in January 1996, ushered in the era of private, free, home- and office-based MEDLINE searching.[3] The PubMed system was offered free to the public starting in June 1997.[2]
Content
[edit]In addition to MEDLINE, PubMed provides access to:
- older references from the print version of Index Medicus, back to 1951 and earlier
- references to some journals before they were indexed in Index Medicus and MEDLINE, for instance Science, BMJ, and Annals of Surgery
- very recent entries to records for an article before it is indexed with Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and added to MEDLINE
- a collection of books available full-text and other subsets of NLM records[4]
- PMC citations
- NCBI Bookshelf
Many PubMed records contain links to full text articles, some of which are freely available, often in PubMed Central[5] and local mirrors, such as Europe PubMed Central.[6]
Information about the journals indexed in MEDLINE, and available through PubMed, is found in the NLM Catalog.[7]
As of 23 May 2023[update], PubMed has more than 35 million citations and abstracts dating back to 1966, selectively to the year 1865, and very selectively to 1809. As of the same date[update], 24.6 million of PubMed's records are listed with their abstracts, and 26.8 million records have links to full-text versions (of which 10.9 million articles are available, full-text for free).[8] Over the last 10 years (ending 31 December 2019), an average of nearly one million new records were added each year. [citation needed]
In 2016, NLM changed the indexing system so that publishers are able to directly correct typos and errors in PubMed indexed articles.[9]
PubMed has been reported to include some articles published in predatory journals. MEDLINE and PubMed policies for the selection of journals for database inclusion are slightly different. Weaknesses in the criteria and procedures for indexing journals in PubMed Central may allow publications from predatory journals to leak into PubMed.[10]
Characteristics
[edit]Website design
[edit]A new PubMed interface was launched in October 2009 and encouraged the use of such quick, Google-like search formulations; they have also been described as 'telegram' searches.[11] By default the results are sorted by Most Recent, but this can be changed to Best Match, Publication Date, First Author, Last Author, Journal, or Title.[12]
The PubMed website design and domain was updated in January 2020 and became default on 15 May 2020, with the updated and new features.[13] There was a critical reaction from many researchers who frequently use the site.[14]
PubMed for handhelds/mobiles
[edit]This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2025) |
PubMed/MEDLINE can be accessed via handheld devices, using for instance the "PICO" option (for focused clinical questions) created by the NLM.[15] A "PubMed Mobile" option, providing access to a mobile friendly, simplified PubMed version, is also available.[16]
Search
[edit]Standard search
[edit]Simple searches on PubMed can be carried out by entering key aspects of a subject into PubMed's search window.
PubMed translates this initial search formulation and automatically adds field names, relevant MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms, synonyms, Boolean operators, and 'nests' the resulting terms appropriately, enhancing the search formulation significantly, in particular by routinely combining (using the OR operator) textwords and MeSH terms.
Comprehensive search
[edit]For optimal searches in PubMed, it is necessary to understand its core component, MEDLINE, and especially of the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) controlled vocabulary used to index MEDLINE articles. They may also require complex search strategies, use of field names (tags), proper use of limits and other features; reference librarians and search specialists offer search services.[17][18]
The search into PubMed's search window is only recommended for the search of unequivocal topics or new interventions that do not yet have a MeSH heading created, as well as for the search for commercial brands of medicines and proper nouns. It is also useful when there is no suitable heading or the descriptor represents a partial aspect. The search using the thesaurus MeSH is more accurate and will give fewer irrelevant results. In addition, it saves the disadvantage of the free text search in which the spelling, singular/plural or abbreviated differences have to be taken into consideration. On the other side, articles more recently incorporated into the database to which descriptors have not yet been assigned will not be found. Therefore, to guarantee an exhaustive search, a combination of controlled language headings and free text terms must be used.[19]
Journal article parameters
[edit]When a journal article is indexed, numerous article parameters are extracted and stored as structured information. Such parameters are: Article Type (MeSH terms, e.g., "Clinical Trial"), Secondary identifiers, (MeSH terms), Language, Country of the Journal or publication history (e-publication date, print journal publication date).
Publication Type: Clinical queries/systematic reviews
[edit]This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2025) |
Publication type parameter allows searching by the type of publication, including reports of various kinds of clinical research.[20]
Secondary ID
[edit]Since July 2005, the MEDLINE article indexing process extracts identifiers from the article abstract and puts those in a field called Secondary Identifier (SI). The secondary identifier field is to store accession numbers to various databases of molecular sequence data, gene expression or chemical compounds and clinical trial IDs. For clinical trials, PubMed extracts trial IDs for the two largest trial registries: ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT identifier) and the International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number Register (IRCTN identifier).[21]
See also
[edit]A reference which is judged particularly relevant can be marked and "related articles" can be identified. If relevant, several studies can be selected and related articles to all of them can be generated (on PubMed or any of the other NCBI Entrez databases) using the 'Find related data' option. The related articles are then listed in order of "relatedness". To create these lists of related articles, PubMed compares words from the title and abstract of each citation, as well as the MeSH headings assigned, using a powerful word-weighted algorithm.[22] The 'related articles' function has been judged to be so precise that the authors of a paper suggested it can be used instead of a full search.[23]
Mapping to MeSH
[edit]PubMed automatically links to MeSH terms and subheadings. Examples would be: "bad breath" links to (and includes in the search) "halitosis" and "heart attack" to "myocardial infarction". Where appropriate, these MeSH terms are automatically "expanded", that is, include more specific terms. Terms like "nursing" are automatically linked to "Nursing [MeSH]" or "Nursing [Subheading]". This feature is called Auto Term Mapping and is enacted, by default, in free text searching but not exact phrase searching (i.e. enclosing the search query with double quotes).[24] This feature makes PubMed searches more sensitive and avoids false-negative (missed) hits by compensating for the diversity of medical terminology.[24]
PubMed does not apply automatic mapping of the term in the following circumstances: by writing the quoted phrase (e.g., "kidney allograft"), when truncated on the asterisk (e.g., kidney allograft*), and when looking with field labels (e.g., Cancer [ti]).[19]
My NCBI
[edit]The PubMed optional facility "My NCBI" (with free registration) provides tools for
- saving searches
- filtering search results
- setting up automatic updates sent by e-mail
- saving sets of references retrieved as part of a PubMed search
- configuring display formats or highlighting search terms
and a wide range of other options.[25] The "My NCBI" area can be accessed from any computer with web-access. An earlier version of "My NCBI" was called "PubMed Cubby".[26]
LinkOut
[edit]LinkOut is an NLM facility to link and make available full-text local journal holdings.[27] Some 3,200 sites (mainly academic institutions) participate in this NLM facility (as of March 2010[update]), from Aalborg University in Denmark to ZymoGenetics in Seattle.[28] Users at these institutions see their institution's logo within the PubMed search result (if the journal is held at that institution) and can access the full-text. Link out is being consolidated with Outside Tool as of the major platform update coming in the Summer of 2019.[29]
PubMed Commons
[edit]In 2016, PubMed allows authors of articles to comment on articles indexed by PubMed. This feature was initially tested in a pilot mode (since 2013) and was made permanent in 2016.[30] In February 2018, PubMed Commons was discontinued due to the fact that "usage has remained minimal".[31][32]
askMEDLINE
[edit]This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2025) |
askMEDLINE, a free-text, natural language query tool for MEDLINE/PubMed, developed by the NLM, also suitable for handhelds.[33]
PubMed identifier
[edit]A PMID (PubMed identifier or PubMed unique identifier)[34] is a unique integer value, starting at 1, assigned to each PubMed record. A PMID is not the same as a PMCID (PubMed Central identifier) which is the identifier for all works published in the free-to-access PubMed Central.[35]
The assignment of a PMID or PMCID to a publication tells the reader nothing about the type or quality of the content. PMIDs are assigned to letters to the editor, editorial opinions, op-ed columns, and any other piece that the editor chooses to include in the journal, as well as peer-reviewed papers. The existence of the identification number is also not proof that the papers have not been retracted for fraud, incompetence, or misconduct. The announcement about any corrections to original papers may be assigned a PMID. [citation needed]
Each number that is entered in the PubMed search window is treated by default as if it were a PMID. Therefore, any reference in PubMed can be located using the PMID. [citation needed]
Alternative interfaces
[edit]
The National Library of Medicine leases the MEDLINE information to a number of private vendors such as Embase, Ovid, Dialog, EBSCO, Knowledge Finder and many other commercial, non-commercial, and academic providers.[36] As of October 2008[update], more than 500 licenses had been issued, more than 200 of them to providers outside the United States. As licenses to use MEDLINE data are available for free, the NLM in effect provides a free testing ground for a wide range[37] of alternative interfaces and 3rd party additions to PubMed, one of a very few large, professionally curated databases which offers this option.
Lu identifies a sample of 28 current and free Web-based PubMed versions, requiring no installation or registration, which are grouped into four categories:[37]
- Ranking search results, for instance: eTBLAST; MedlineRanker;[38] MiSearch;[39]
- Clustering results by topics, authors, journals etc., for instance: Anne O'Tate;[40] ClusterMed;[41]
- Enhancing semantics and visualization, for instance: EBIMed;[42] MedEvi.[43]
- Improved search interface and retrieval experience, for instance, askMEDLINE[44][45] BabelMeSH;[46] and PubCrawler.[47]
As most of these and other alternatives rely essentially on PubMed/MEDLINE data leased under license from the NLM/PubMed, the term "PubMed derivatives" has been suggested.[37] Without the need to store about 90 GB of original PubMed Datasets, anybody can write PubMed applications using the eutils-application program interface as described in "The E-utilities In-Depth: Parameters, Syntax and More", by Eric Sayers, PhD.[48] Various citation format generators, taking PMID numbers as input, are examples of web applications making use of the eutils-application program interface. Sample web pages include Citation Generator – Mick Schroeder, Pubmed Citation Generator – Ultrasound of the Week, PMID2cite, and Cite this for me.
In 2025, the ZBMed, the German National Library of Medicine, announced plans to develop an internationally supported open source version of PubMed.[49][50]
Data mining of PubMed
[edit]Alternative methods to mine the data in PubMed use programming environments such as Matlab, Python or R. In these cases, queries of PubMed are written as lines of code and passed to PubMed and the response is then processed directly in the programming environment.[citation needed] Code can be automated to systematically query with different keywords such as disease, year, organs, etc.
For bulk processing, the full PubMed database is available as XML which can be downloaded from an FTP server. The annual baseline is released in December, followed by daily update files.[51]
In addition to its traditional role as a biomedical database, PubMed has become common resource for training biomedical language models.[52]
The data accessible by PubMed can be mirrored locally using an unofficial tool such as MEDOC.[53]
Millions of PubMed records augment various open data datasets about open access, like Unpaywall. Data analysis tools like Unpaywall Journals are used by libraries to assist with big deal cancellations: libraries can avoid subscriptions for materials already served by instant open access via open archives like PubMed Central.[54]
See also
[edit]References
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- ^ a b Lindberg DA (2000). "Internet access to the National Library of Medicine" (PDF). Effective Clinical Practice. 3 (5): 256–60. PMID 11185333. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 November 2013.
- ^ "PubMed Celebrates its 10th Anniversary". Technical Bulletin. United States National Library of Medicine. 5 October 2006. Archived from the original on 23 April 2018. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
- ^ "PubMed: MEDLINE Retrieval on the World Wide Web". Fact Sheet. United States National Library of Medicine. 7 June 2002. Archived from the original on 1 September 2018. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
- ^ Roberts RJ (January 2001). "PubMed Central: The GenBank of the published literature". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 98 (2): 381–2. Bibcode:2001PNAS...98..381R. doi:10.1073/pnas.98.2.381. PMC 33354. PMID 11209037.
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- ^ "NLM Catalogue: Journals referenced in the NCBI Databases". NCBI. 2011. Archived from the original on 13 October 2023. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
- ^ "PubMed". PubMed. Archived from the original on 6 January 2022. Retrieved 5 January 2023. The search query "1800:2100[dp]" retrieves all results whose date of publication is between 1800 and 2100 inclusive.
- ^ "MEDLINE/PubMed Production Improvements Underway". NLM Technical Bulletin (411): e1. July–August 2016. Archived from the original on 29 March 2023. Retrieved 29 July 2016.
- ^ Manca A, Moher D, Cugusi L, Dvir Z, Deriu F (September 2018). "How predatory journals leak into PubMed". CMAJ. 190 (35): E1042 – E1045. doi:10.1503/cmaj.180154. PMC 6148641. PMID 30181150.
- ^ Clarke J, Wentz R (September 2000). "Pragmatic approach is effective in evidence based health care". BMJ. 321 (7260): 566–7. doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7260.566/a. PMC 1118450. PMID 10968827.
- ^ Fatehi F, Gray LC, Wootton R (January 2014). "How to improve your PubMed/MEDLINE searches: 2. display settings, complex search queries and topic searching". Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare. 20 (1): 44–55. doi:10.1177/1357633X13517067. PMID 24352897. S2CID 43725062.
- ^ Trawick B (21 January 2020). "A New and Improved PubMed®". NLM Musings From the Mezzanine. Archived from the original on 7 October 2023. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
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- ^ "PubMed via handhelds (PICO)". Technical Bulletin. United States National Library of Medicine. 2004. Archived from the original on 30 May 2023. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
- ^ "PubMed Mobile Beta". Technical Bulletin. United States National Library of Medicine. 2011. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
- ^ Jadad AR, McQuay HJ (July 1993). "Searching the literature. Be systematic in your searching". BMJ. 307 (6895): 66. doi:10.1136/bmj.307.6895.66-a. PMC 1678459. PMID 8343701.
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- ^ a b Campos-Asensio C (2018). "Cómo elaborar una estrategia de búsqueda bibliográfica". Enfermería Intensiva (in Spanish). 29 (4): 182–186. doi:10.1016/j.enfi.2018.09.001. PMID 30291015. S2CID 188132546.
- ^ Clinical Queries Filter Terms explained. NCBI. 2010. Archived from the original on 29 November 2022. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
- ^ Huser V, Cimino JJ (June 2013). "Evaluating adherence to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' policy of mandatory, timely clinical trial registration". Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 20 (e1): e169-74. doi:10.1136/amiajnl-2012-001501. PMC 3715364. PMID 23396544.
- ^ "Computation of Related Articles explained". NCBI. Archived from the original on 18 December 2008. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
- ^ Chang AA, Heskett KM, Davidson TM (February 2006). "Searching the literature using medical subject headings versus text word with PubMed" (PDF). The Laryngoscope. 116 (2): 336–40. doi:10.1097/01.mlg.0000195371.72887.a2. PMID 16467730. S2CID 42510351. Retrieved 11 September 2018.
- ^ a b Fatehi F, Gray LC, Wootton R (March 2014). "How to improve your PubMed/MEDLINE searches: 3. advanced searching, MeSH and My NCBI". Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare. 20 (2): 102–12. doi:10.1177/1357633X13519036. PMID 24614997. S2CID 9948223.
- ^ "My NCBI Help". My NCBI explained. NCBI. 13 December 2010. Archived from the original on 26 July 2023. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
- ^ "PubMed Cubby". Technical Bulletin. United States National Library of Medicine. 2000. Archived from the original on 20 February 2023. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
- ^ "LinkOut Overview". NCBI. 2010. Archived from the original on 10 September 2023. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
- ^ "LinkOut Participants 2011". NCBI. 2011. Archived from the original on 14 October 2017. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
- ^ "An Updated PubMed is on its Way". Archived from the original on 16 May 2023. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
- ^ PubMed Commons Team (17 December 2015). "Commenting on PubMed: A Successful Pilot". Archived from the original on 25 October 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2016.
- ^ "PubMed Commons to be Discontinued". NCBI Insights. 1 February 2018. Archived from the original on 28 August 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
- ^ "PubMed shuts down its comments feature, PubMed Commons". Retraction Watch. 2 February 2018. Archived from the original on 28 June 2022. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
- ^ "askMedline". NCBI. 2005. Archived from the original on 17 July 2013. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
- ^ "Search Field Descriptions and Tags". National Center for Biotechnology Information. Archived from the original on 11 July 2013. Retrieved 15 July 2013.
- ^ Keener M. "PMID vs. PMCID: What's the difference?" (PDF). University of Chicago. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 July 2014. Retrieved 19 January 2014.
- ^ "Leasing journal citations from PubMed/Medline". NLM. 2011. Archived from the original on 9 July 2023. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
- ^ a b c Lu Z (2011). "PubMed and beyond: a survey of web tools for searching biomedical literature". Database. 2011 baq036. doi:10.1093/database/baq036. PMC 3025693. PMID 21245076.
- ^ Fontaine JF, Barbosa-Silva A, Schaefer M, Huska MR, Muro EM, Andrade-Navarro MA (July 2009). "MedlineRanker: flexible ranking of biomedical literature". Nucleic Acids Research. 37 (Web Server issue): W141-6. doi:10.1093/nar/gkp353. PMC 2703945. PMID 19429696.
- ^ States DJ, Ade AS, Wright ZC, Bookvich AV, Athey BD (April 2009). "MiSearch adaptive pubMed search tool". Bioinformatics. 25 (7): 974–6. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btn033. PMC 2660869. PMID 18326507.
- ^ Smalheiser NR, Zhou W, Torvik VI (February 2008). "Anne O'Tate: A tool to support user-driven summarization, drill-down and browsing of PubMed search results". Journal of Biomedical Discovery and Collaboration. 3: 2. doi:10.1186/1747-5333-3-2. PMC 2276193. PMID 18279519.
- ^ "ClusterMed". Vivisimo Clustering Engine. 2011. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 3 July 2011.
- ^ Rebholz-Schuhmann D, Kirsch H, Arregui M, Gaudan S, Riethoven M, Stoehr P (January 2007). "EBIMed--text crunching to gather facts for proteins from Medline". Bioinformatics. 23 (2): e237-44. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btl302. PMID 17237098.
- ^ Kim JJ, Pezik P, Rebholz-Schuhmann D (June 2008). "MedEvi: retrieving textual evidence of relations between biomedical concepts from Medline". Bioinformatics. 24 (11): 1410–2. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btn117. PMC 2387223. PMID 18400773.
- ^ Fontelo P, Liu F, Ackerman M, Schardt CM, Keitz SA (2006). "askMEDLINE: a report on a year-long experience". AMIA ... Annual Symposium Proceedings. AMIA Symposium. 2006: 923. PMC 1839379. PMID 17238542.
- ^ Fontelo P, Liu F, Ackerman M (2005). "MeSH Speller + askMEDLINE: auto-completes MeSH terms then searches MEDLINE/PubMed via free-text, natural language queries". AMIA ... Annual Symposium Proceedings. AMIA Symposium. 2005: 957. PMC 1513542. PMID 16779244.
- ^ Fontelo P, Liu F, Leon S, Anne A, Ackerman M (2007). "PICO Linguist and BabelMeSH: development and partial evaluation of evidence-based multilanguage search tools for MEDLINE/PubMed". Studies in Health Technology and Informatics. 129 (Pt 1): 817–21. PMID 17911830. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
- ^ Hokamp K, Wolfe KH (July 2004). "PubCrawler: keeping up comfortably with PubMed and GenBank". Nucleic Acids Research. 32 (Web Server issue): W16-9. doi:10.1093/nar/gkh453. PMC 441591. PMID 15215341.
- ^ Eric Sayers, PhD (24 October 2018). The E-utilities In-Depth: Parameters, Syntax and More. NCBI. Archived from the original on 23 June 2023. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
- ^ Clark C (28 May 2025). "Germany Plans Global Alternative to PubMed". MedPage Today. Retrieved 21 June 2025.
- ^ "OLSPub: Life sciences research needs a solid infrastructure". ZB MED - Informationszentrum Lebenswissenschaften. Retrieved 21 June 2025.
- ^ Bramley R, Howe S, Marmanis H (4 November 2023). "Notes on the data quality of bibliographic records from the MEDLINE database". Database. 2023 baad070. doi:10.1093/database/baad070. ISSN 1758-0463. PMC 10630407. PMID 37935584.
- ^ Singhal K, Azizi S, Tu T, Mahdavi SS, Wei J, Chung HW, et al. (3 August 2023). "Large language models encode clinical knowledge". Nature. 620 (7972): 172–180. arXiv:2212.13138. Bibcode:2023Natur.620..172S. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06291-2. PMC 10396962. PMID 37438534.
- ^ MEDOC on GitHub
- ^ Denise Wolfe (7 April 2020). "SUNY Negotiates New, Modified Agreement with Elsevier – Libraries News Center University at Buffalo Libraries". library.buffalo.edu. University at Buffalo. Archived from the original on 6 December 2020. Retrieved 18 April 2020.
External links
[edit]PubMed
View on GrokipediaHistory and Development
Origins in MEDLINE
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) established MEDLINE in 1971 as an online bibliographic database, serving as the interactive successor to the MEDLARS (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System) batch-processing system introduced in 1964.[6] This development marked a shift from tape-based distribution of Index Medicus citations to real-time online searching, with the database initially encompassing approximately 400,000 citations dating back to 1966.[7] MEDLINE's creation built on the NLM's long tradition of indexing medical literature, which originated with the print Index Medicus in 1879, but computerized processing via MEDLARS enabled more efficient handling of growing biomedical publications.[6] From its inception, MEDLINE focused on indexing peer-reviewed biomedical literature, starting with citations from 239 journals selected for their relevance to clinical medicine and related fields.[7] Over the following years, coverage expanded to include broader life sciences and health topics, incorporating journals in areas such as basic sciences, nursing, and dentistry, while maintaining rigorous selection criteria based on scientific quality and editorial standards.[4] Central to this indexing was the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) controlled vocabulary, introduced by the NLM in 1960 to standardize terminology and improve retrieval accuracy across the database's growing corpus.[8] By the 1970s, technological advancements like the ELHILL search software facilitated direct online access through distributed networks, transitioning from limited institutional use to wider availability for researchers and clinicians.[9] The database experienced significant growth throughout the 1970s and 1980s, with citations expanding from around 400,000 in the early 1970s to several million by the 1990s, reflecting the explosion in biomedical publishing.[7] To enhance user-friendliness amid this scale, the NLM introduced Grateful Med in 1986, a personal computer-based interface that simplified searches of MEDLINE and related databases via dial-up connections, remaining in use until 2001.[10] These foundations in automated indexing and accessible retrieval positioned MEDLINE as a cornerstone of biomedical information, paving the way for its integration into the free web-based PubMed interface launched in 1996.[6]Launch and Key Milestones
PubMed was officially launched in January 1996 by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), providing free public access to the MEDLINE database via the internet and replacing previous fee-based services such as Grateful Med.[11] This experimental release under the Entrez retrieval system marked a significant shift, enabling home- and office-based searching of over 9 million biomedical citations without subscription costs.[2] Developed to democratize access to scientific literature, PubMed quickly became a cornerstone resource for researchers worldwide.[3] In 2000, PubMed began integrating full-text content through PubMed Central (PMC), NLM's free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal articles, which expanded the platform beyond abstracts to include peer-reviewed full texts where available.[12] This addition supported growing demands for open access, with PMC launching publicly that year to host deposited articles. In September 2003, over 1.5 million OLDMEDLINE citations—covering pre-1966 biomedical literature from 1953 to 1965—were incorporated into PubMed, retroactively broadening its historical scope without abstracts for those older records.[13] Concurrently, NCBI Bookshelf, established in 1999 as a repository of full-text books and documents in life sciences and healthcare, became linked within PubMed searches, allowing users to access book chapters and reports directly from citation results.[14] Key enhancements continued into the 2010s, including the release of PubMed Mobile in March 2011, a lightweight web interface optimized for smartphones to facilitate faster loading and easier navigation on mobile devices.[15] In 2013, PubMed Commons was introduced as an author commenting feature to foster post-publication discussion on indexed articles, but it was discontinued in March 2018 due to low engagement and limited participation.[16] The 2008 NIH Public Access Policy further propelled PubMed's evolution by mandating that peer-reviewed manuscripts from NIH-funded research be submitted to PMC no later than 12 months after publication, enhancing open access availability.[17] By 2020, PubMed had expanded to encompass over 30 million citations, reflecting its growth through ongoing additions from MEDLINE, PMC, and other sources, while emphasizing open access initiatives to support global biomedical research.[18]Recent Updates and Modernization
In 2024, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) transitioned PubMed Central (PMC) to an updated website on October 16, integrating enhanced full-text rendering capabilities and synchronized search functionality with PubMed to streamline user access to biomedical literature.[19] This modernization effort leverages the U.S. Web Design System to improve overall usability, including better responsiveness for mobile devices, ensuring equitable access across platforms.[20] Building on these changes, PubMed introduced significant interface updates in 2025. The "Latest Literature" section on the homepage was removed after March 31, 2025, and replaced with a dedicated PubMed updates feed to provide more targeted notifications on platform enhancements and new content.[21] In June 2025, further refinements included improved rendering of reference lists for clearer citation display, the addition of timestamps to search history downloads for better tracking, and streamlined sharing options to facilitate collaboration among researchers.[22] Content categorization also advanced with the 2025 MeSH updates, effective January 2025, which added new publication types such as Scoping Review and Network Meta-Analysis to accommodate emerging research methodologies and improve indexing precision.[23] These additions enable more accurate filtering and retrieval of systematic reviews and comparative effectiveness studies, reflecting PubMed's adaptation to evolving scholarly practices. Ongoing modernization includes expansions to PubMed Labs, initially introduced in 2017 as an experimental platform for testing new features.[24][25] This initiative supports proactive discovery in biomedical research while maintaining accessibility standards for diverse users.Content and Coverage
Core Databases and Scope
PubMed's core database is MEDLINE, the National Library of Medicine's premier bibliographic resource containing over 31 million references to journal articles in the biomedical and life sciences literature.[26] MEDLINE draws from more than 5,200 scholarly journals published worldwide in approximately 40 languages, primarily focusing on biomedicine, health, life sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical sciences, bioengineering, and related fields such as biology, environmental sciences, and biophysics.[26] This database emphasizes peer-reviewed content, providing citations and abstracts that support research in clinical medicine, preclinical sciences, and allied health disciplines.[26] In addition to MEDLINE, PubMed incorporates PubMed Central (PMC), a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature with over 11 million articles as of 2025.[27] PMC includes open-access publications from participating journals, author manuscripts required by funder policies, and select preprints, spanning from the late 1700s to the present.[28] PubMed also integrates content from the NCBI Bookshelf, which provides citations and full-text access to thousands of e-books, reports, and documents in biomedicine, health, and life sciences, enhancing the platform's utility for comprehensive literature reviews.[5] Furthermore, OLDMEDLINE extends coverage to historical records, including citations from the 1946 through 1965 volumes of the Current List of Medical Literature and Cumulated Index Medicus, adding approximately 2 million pre-1966 references that were retroactively digitized and integrated into PubMed.[29] The scope of PubMed is deliberately focused on high-quality, peer-reviewed journal articles, abstracts, and select books or book chapters, prioritizing substantive contributions to scientific knowledge while excluding materials such as patents, dissertations, conference proceedings, or non-peer-reviewed content unless specifically selected for inclusion.[26] Although multilingual content is indexed when relevant, the majority is in English, with non-English dominant publications included only if they meet MEDLINE's rigorous selection criteria for scientific merit and relevance.[26] Coverage begins systematically from 1946 for most journals, with selective indexing of earlier literature via OLDMEDLINE, and PubMed adds 1 to 1.5 million new citations annually to maintain its currency in rapidly evolving fields.[30]Indexing with MeSH
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) serves as the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) controlled vocabulary for indexing, cataloging, and searching biomedical literature in PubMed. Developed in 1960, MeSH organizes concepts hierarchically to standardize terminology across health-related topics, ensuring consistent retrieval of relevant articles.[31] The vocabulary undergoes annual updates to incorporate emerging concepts; for the 2025 edition, new descriptors include "Generative Artificial Intelligence" to address advancements in AI applications within healthcare, alongside the addition of "Scoping Review" as a publication type with retroactive indexing for citations from 2020 onward.[32][23] The indexing process for PubMed articles, primarily from MEDLINE, transitioned to full automation in April 2022 using the Medical Text Indexer (MTI) system, supplemented by human review and curation where necessary to maintain accuracy.[33] This automated approach assigns approximately 10-15 MeSH terms per article, focusing on the most specific descriptors that capture the content's main subjects, often including qualifiers to denote aspects like methodology or outcomes.[34] For instance, an article on drug side effects might be indexed with terms such as "Aspirin/adverse effects," where "adverse effects" is a subheading (qualifier) refining the primary descriptor. During searches, PubMed employs automatic term mapping to translate user queries into corresponding MeSH terms, enhancing precision and recall.[35] MeSH's hierarchical tree structure organizes over 30,000 descriptors into 16 top-level categories, such as Anatomy [A], Diseases [C], and Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment [E], allowing for the "explosion" of related narrower terms in searches to broaden results systematically.[36] Subheadings provide further specificity, with 83 topical qualifiers (e.g., "therapy," "etiology," "adverse effects") that can be paired with descriptors to highlight particular facets of a topic, enabling targeted retrieval without exhaustive keyword variations.[37] Additionally, MeSH integrates Supplementary Concept Records (SCRs), a daily-updated thesaurus for rapidly emerging substances like new drugs or chemicals, which link to established descriptors and support indexing of novel entities not yet in the main vocabulary.[38] This structure ensures PubMed's content remains dynamically organized for comprehensive biomedical discovery.Publication Types and Filters
PubMed categorizes biomedical literature using over 80 distinct publication types, which describe the format, style, or purpose of an article, such as Clinical Trial, Review, and Systematic Review. These types are assigned during indexing based on data provided by publishers or by National Library of Medicine (NLM) indexers, allowing users to identify specific article formats efficiently.[5][39] Examples include Randomized Controlled Trial for experimental studies evaluating interventions, Meta-Analysis for statistical syntheses of multiple studies, and Case Reports for detailed descriptions of individual patient cases.[39] In 2025, new publication types were added to reflect evolving research methodologies, including Scoping Review, which maps the extent and nature of literature on a broad topic without critically appraising it, and Network Meta-Analysis, which compares multiple interventions simultaneously using direct and indirect evidence from randomized trials.[40] The filter system in PubMed enables post-search refinement of results to focus on relevant subsets of citations, applied via a sidebar interface after an initial query. Key filters include article types, which limit results to specific publication types like those mentioned above; text availability, distinguishing between free full text, full text (regardless of access), and abstracts only; and publication date, with presets such as the last 5 years or custom ranges like 2020-2025.[5] Additional filters cover species (e.g., humans or other animals, based on MeSH terms), language (e.g., English), age groups (e.g., child: birth to 18 years or aged: 65+ years), and journal categories (e.g., by title or subject area).[5] These filters rely on indexed metadata, such as Publication Type [pt] tags for article types or Subset [sb] for text availability, and can exclude citations lacking full indexing.[5] A specialized component of the filter system is Clinical Queries, designed to retrieve high-quality evidence for clinical decision-making using predefined, evidence-based search hedges. It includes categories for therapy (e.g., broad search for randomized controlled trials on treatments), diagnosis (e.g., studies on test accuracy), etiology (e.g., risk factors and causes), prognosis (e.g., disease outcomes), and clinical prediction guides (e.g., models for forecasting patient events), each available in narrow or broad sensitivity options to balance precision and recall.[41] These hedges incorporate terms like "randomized controlled trial[pt]" combined with topic-specific keywords, ensuring results align with evidence-based practice standards.[42] Filters in PubMed are applied to the results display and can be combined using Boolean logic for targeted refinement, such as restricting to humans, randomized controlled trials, and publications from 2020-2025 to identify recent human clinical trials. Users access additional options by selecting "See all" links in the sidebar, and applied filters persist across sessions via My NCBI preferences until manually cleared. This modular approach enhances usability by allowing iterative narrowing without altering the core search query.[5]Search Functionality
Basic and Standard Search
PubMed's basic search interface is designed for accessibility, featuring a prominent single search box on the homepage where users can enter queries in natural language or simple keywords, such as "COVID-19 vaccine," without requiring specialized syntax.[5] This entry point processes untagged terms through Automatic Term Mapping (ATM), which intelligently maps them to controlled vocabularies like Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) as well as free-text fields in titles, abstracts, and other searchable components, ensuring broad and relevant retrieval for general users.[5] To refine queries, PubMed supports standard Boolean operators—AND, OR, and NOT (entered in uppercase)—allowing users to combine or exclude concepts; AND is the default operator between adjacent terms.[5] For instance, "diabetes AND treatment" retrieves articles containing both terms, while "(covid OR coronavirus) AND (vaccine OR immunization)" combines alternatives, and "stroke NOT "hemorrhagic stroke"[tiab]" excludes specific phrases from titles and abstracts; processing occurs left-to-right unless parenthesized for grouping complex expressions.[5] Phrase searching is facilitated by enclosing exact terms in double quotes, such as "heart disease," which searches for the precise sequence and bypasses ATM if the phrase is not indexed as such.[5] Additionally, field-specific tags enable targeted searches; the [tiab] tag limits results to titles and abstracts, deactivating ATM to focus solely on those fields, which is useful for quick, text-based explorations.[5] Handy tricks for keyword searches include using hyphens for compound terms, such as "breast-feed*" or "covid-19," to treat them as phrases, and noting that stopwords like "of" or "in" are generally ignored unless enclosed in quotes or used in proximity searches.[5] Search results are displayed in a relevance-ranked order using PubMed's Best Match algorithm, a machine learning-based system that prioritizes the most pertinent citations, showing up to 10 per page by default with informative snippets, author lists, publication dates, and journal details for rapid scanning.[5] Users can export selected citations in formats like RIS or BibTeX through the Citation Manager tool, or download them as .nbib files for integration with reference software; alternatively, citations can be emailed directly via the NCBI mail server by selecting items and providing an address.[5] After performing a search, users can apply filters from the sidebar for criteria such as publication date, article type, and availability of full text to refine results further. For managing too many or too few results, strategies include adding or removing terms to narrow or broaden the query, using OR to incorporate synonyms for expansion, or checking the "Similar Articles" feature on a relevant abstract to discover related content.[5] The search history feature maintains a record of the most recent 100 queries, each timestamped for easy reference, and automatically expires after eight hours to manage session data; as of 2025, enhancements allow users to download this history in CSV format for offline archiving and analysis.[5] For more intricate needs, advanced options build upon these basics, though the standard interface suffices for most everyday literature retrieval.[5]Advanced and Comprehensive Search
PubMed's Advanced Search Builder enables users to construct precise and complex queries by selecting specific search fields and incorporating Boolean operators. This tool allows selection from over 50 fields, such as Author [au] for creator names, Journal [ta] for publication titles, and Date - Publication [dp] for temporal ranges, with autocomplete suggestions to refine entries. Boolean operators—AND to combine concepts, OR to include synonyms, and NOT to exclude terms—facilitate structured queries, with AND serving as the default operator between adjacent terms and queries processed left-to-right unless grouped with parentheses; examples include(covid OR coronavirus) AND (vaccine OR immunization) or stroke NOT "hemorrhagic stroke"[tiab], such as (diabetes[mh] OR "type 2 diabetes"[ti]) AND (insulin[ti] OR [sulfonylurea](/page/Sulfonylurea)[ti]) NOT [pediatrics](/page/Pediatrics)[ti], enabling exhaustive literature retrieval for research purposes.[5] The Advanced Search Builder also allows combining elements from the search history, such as referencing previous queries with "#1 AND #2" to build upon prior results.
For comprehensive searches, particularly in systematic reviews, PubMed offers a dedicated mode that incorporates high-sensitivity hedges to maximize recall. The Systematic Review filter, accessible via the sidebar, applies a pre-defined strategy combining publication types like "systematic review[pt]" with title terms such as "meta-analysis[ti]" or "systematic review[ti]", excluding protocols and comments to focus on synthesized evidence; this hedge retrieves citations from MEDLINE, pre-MEDLINE, and non-MEDLINE sources, including Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Users can further enhance sensitivity by appending "systematic[sb]" to queries, mimicking exhaustive strategies for evidence synthesis.[43][5]
MeSH term integration supports advanced querying through direct entry from the MeSH database, where users select controlled vocabulary terms like "Hypertension[mh]" and apply subheadings such as "/therapy[sh]" to specify aspects like treatment. The explosion feature automatically includes the selected term and all narrower hierarchical terms (e.g., exploding "Cardiovascular Diseases[mh]" encompasses subtypes like "Hypertension[mh]"), unless disabled with [mh:noexp]; subheading explosion similarly broadens to related qualifiers unless tagged [sh:noexp], ensuring comprehensive coverage of indexed concepts.[5]
Clinical Queries provide pre-built filters tailored for evidence synthesis in clinical contexts, categorizing searches into areas like Therapy (emphasizing randomized controlled trials), Diagnosis (focusing on diagnostic accuracy studies), and Systematic Reviews (leveraging publication type filters for meta-analyses and overviews). These topic-specific queries, such as those for Etiology or Prognosis, apply broad or narrow sensitivity-specificity balances to refine results efficiently, for instance, by prioritizing high-quality evidence in disease-specific topics.[41][5]
Limits and hedges further refine advanced searches to emulate Cochrane-style comprehensiveness, with options for date ranges (e.g., "2015:2025[dp]" or "last 10 years[dp]"), language restrictions (e.g., "english[la]"), and study designs via article types (e.g., "randomized controlled trial[pt]" or "clinical trial[pt]"). These can be combined with hedges like species limits ("humans[mh] NOT animals[mh] NOT animals[mesh:noexp]") or age filters, applied through the builder or sidebar to ensure reproducible, high-recall strategies without over-narrowing results.[5]
