To search Medline(OVID) for the topic "needle biopsy and prostate cancer", follow below 4 steps:
Performing Mesh Searching
In the search box type "prostate cancer" and click "Search" or "Enter", it will suggest the Mesh term that best matches the term entered which is "Prostatic Neoplasm", displayed as a hyperlink, that best matches the term entered.
Medline will automatically suggest MeSH term(s) "Prostatic Neoplasms" displayed as hyperlinks, that best match the term entered. At the end of the MeSH list there is a choice to search for the term entered as a "keyword search":
Select the MeSH Prostatic Neoplasms, check MeSH tree of the Mesh term "prostatic neoplasms", to know whether to explode or not, click on its hyperlink.
If you are not sure of the Mesh, click on the Scope to understand the meaning of it. If it is relevant and you chose to OR it with all the results of the narrower Mehes (more indented), then click Explode (check boxes of first column).
If you choose to retrieve only those articles that talk heavily about that MeSH term, then click Focus (check boxes of the second column).
You can Explode & Focus simultaneously, click "Continue"
Medline displays subheadings that could further restrict a subject search. One could choose one, or more, or all subheadings. You could choose here subheadings for diagnosis, or select all subheadings (or not select it which means to select all).
Then, click "Continue", Set 1 is created indicating that there are 108,641 articles that talk heavily about Prostatic Neoplasms OR heavily talking about Prostatic Neoplasms, Castration-Resistant.
You have now Set 1 for your first concept, follow the same steps for the second concept, that is exploding, focusing, and selecting all subheadings of the concept "needle biopsy", you will now have Set 2 of 18,911 articles.
The "/" after a word or a phrase indicates that this is a Mesh. The "*" before the Mesh indicates that this Mesh has been focused.
After each concept was searched for its proper Mesh, the different concepts are to be combined. And the right Boolean Operator to combine these concepts is AND, because I want to retrieve articles talking about both concepts.
This final set could be limited, check here, if you want.
After selecting all the limits of interest, Medline displays the results with the most recent 10 articles appearing first. Some articles contain "PDF Full Text" link that would take you to the full-text of that particular article in PDF format, the "SML Full Text Available" link would take you to the full-text, whereas the "Complete Reference" displays the citation, MeSH terms plus abstract (if available).
SML does not own Full-text access to all bibliographies.
If you are satisfied with the number of results, that is great, if not, then remove the focus & subheadings if selected. If still, this did not work, then explode the broader Mesh or OR with other relevant Meshes. If this still did not satisfy you then go Keyword searching.
Whether you are performing Mesh OR keyword searching, you are always looking in the bibliography of the articles & NOT the Full Text.
Suppose you want to see if there is evidence about the effectiveness of needle biopsy in diagnosing prostatic cancer.
Search Medline(OVID) as discussed above; then
click "Limits" then "Additional Limits"
Go under "Clinical Queries" that filters for evidence-based citations and select any of:
By default, your last search, which is Set 3 is the limited set
Click on
the end result would be 473 if "Diagnosis (best balance of sensitivity and specificity)" was selected.
If an EBM search resulted in a very low in number of hits, you can remove Focus and also OR the MeSH with relevant keywords.
