Pubmed

Boolean operators must be in uppercase

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Author format is last name then two initials or use [au] with quotes

Journal is [ta]

Use *as wildcard symbol

• Affiliation [AD] May include the institutional affiliation and address (including e-mail address) of the first author of the article as it appears in the journal. This field can be used to search for work done at specific institutions (e.g., cleveland [ad] AND clinic [ad]). 
• All Fields [ALL] Includes all searchable PubMed fields. However, only terms where there is no match found in one of the Translation tables or Indexes via the Automatic Term Mapping process will be searched in All Fields. PubMed ignores stopwords from search queries.
• Author [AU]  Various limits on the number of authors included in the MEDLINE citation have existed over the years (see NLM policy on author names). The format to search for this field is: last name followed by a space and up to the first two initials followed by a space and a suffix abbreviation, if applicable, all without periods or a comma after the last name (e.g., fauci as or o'brien jc jr). Initials and suffixes may be omitted when searching. PubMed automatically truncates on an author's name to account for varying initials, e.g., o'brien j [au] will retrieve o'brien ja, o'brien jb, o'brien jc jr, as well as o'brien j. To turn off this automatic truncation, enclose the author's name in double quotes and qualify with [au] in brackets, e.g., "o'brien j" [au] to retrieve just o'brien j. Full names display in the FAU field on the MEDLINE display format. The FAU field is not searchable.
• Comment Correction Type The data in these fields are citations to other associated journal publications, e.g., comments or errata. Often these link to the respective citation. Comments/Corrections data can be retrieved as follows:

• Corporate Author [CN] Identifies the corporate authorship of an article. Corporate names display exactly as they appear in the journal. Note: Citations indexed pre-2000 and some citations indexed in 2000-2001 retain corporate authors at the end of the title field. For comprehensive searches, consider including terms and/or words searched in the title field [ti].
• EC/RN Number [RN] Number assigned by the Enzyme Commission (EC) to designate a particular enzyme or by the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) for Registry Numbers, e.g., 1-5-20-4[rn]
• Entrez Date [EDAT] Date the citation was added to the PubMed database. The Entrez Date is set to the Publication Date on citations before September 1997, when this field was first added to PubMed. Citations are  displayed in Entrez Date order which is last in, first out. Dates or date ranges must be entered using the format YYYY/MM/DD [edat], e.g., 1998/04/06 [edat] . The month and day are optional (e.g., 1998 [edat] or 1998/03 [edat]). To enter a date range, insert a colon (:) between each date (e.g., 1996:1997 [edat] or 1998/01:1998/04 [edat]).

Note:

The Entrez Date is not changed to reflect the date a publisher supplied record is elevated to in process or when an in process record is elevated to indexed for MEDLINE. Therefore, use caution when your strategy includes MeSH terms and a date or date range using the search field tag, [edat].

• Filter [FILTER] [SB] Technical tags used by LinkOut, filters include:

loall[sb] - Citations with LinkOut links in PubMed.
free full text[sb]  - Citations that include a link to a free full-text article.
full text[sb] - Citations that include a link to a full-text article.

Use Preview/Index to browse the LinkOut index. Select Filter from the All Fields pull-down menu, enter 'loprov' in the query box, click Index. PubMed displays an alphabetic list of the LinkOut providers. The 'losubj' and 'loattr' entries are links indexed by Subject Types and Attributes. The  'loftext' entries include a link to the online full-text of a journal citation.

• Grant Number [GR] Research grant numbers, contract numbers, or both that designate financial support by any agency of the US PHS (Public Health Service). The three pieces of the grant number (LM05545 - number, LM - acronym, and NLM - institute mnemonic) are each individually searchable using the [gr] tag.
• Issue [IP] The number of the journal issue in which the article was published.
• Investigator [IR] Names of the NASA-funded principal investigator(s) who conducted the research. Search names following the Author field format, e.g., soller b [ir]
• Journal Title [TA] The journal title abbreviation, full journal title, or ISSN number (e.g., J Biol Chem, Journal of Biological Chemistry, 0021-9258). The Journals database is available from the PubMed homepage sidebar to look up the full name, abbreviation, and ISSN number of a journal. If a journal title contains special characters, e.g., parentheses, brackets, enter the name without these characters, e.g., enter J Hand Surg [Am] as J Hand Surg Am.
• Language [LA] The language in which the article was published. Note that many non-English articles have English language abstracts. You can either enter the language or enter just the first three characters of most languages, e.g., chi [la] retrieves the same as chinese [la]. The most notable exception is jpn [la] for Japanese.
•  MeSH Date [MHDA]  The date the citation was indexed with MeSH Terms and elevated to MEDLINE for citations with an Entrez Date after March 4, 2000.  The MeSH Date is initially set to the Entrez Date when the citation is added to PubMed. If the MeSH Date and Entrez Date on a citation are the same, and the Entrez Date is after March 4, 2000, the citation has not yet been indexed.  Dates or date ranges must be entered using the format YYYY/MM/DD [mhda], e.g. 2000/03/15 [mhda] . The month and day are optional (e.g., 2000 [mhda] or 2000/03 [mhda]). To enter a date range, insert a colon (:) between each date (e.g., 1999:2000 [mhda] or 2000/03:2000/04 [mhda]).
• MeSH Major Topic [MAJR] A MeSH term that is one of the main topics discussed in the article denoted by an asterisk on the MeSH term or MeSH/Subheading combination, e.g., Cytokines/physiology* See MeSH Terms.
• MeSH Subheadings [SH] MeSH Subheadings are used with MeSH terms to help describe more completely a particular aspect of a subject. For example, the drug therapy of asthma is displayed as asthma/drug therapy, see MeSH/Subheading Combinations. The MeSH Subheading field allows users to "free float" Subheadings, e.g., hypertension [mh] AND toxicity [sh]. MeSH Subheadings automatically include the more specific Subheading terms under the term in a search. To turn off this automatic feature, use the search syntax [sh:noexp], e.g., therapy [sh:noexp].  In addition, you can enter the MEDLINE two letter MeSH Subheading abbreviations rather than spelling out the Subheading, e.g., dh [sh] = diet therapy [sh].
• MeSH Terms [MH] NLM's Medical Subject Headings controlled vocabulary of biomedical terms that is used to describe the subject of each journal article in MEDLINE. MeSH contains more than 22,000 terms and is updated annually to reflect changes in medicine and medical terminology. MeSH terms are arranged hierarchically by subject categories with more specific terms arranged beneath broader terms. PubMed allows you to view this hierarchy and select terms for searching in the MeSH Database.

Skilled subject analysts examine journal articles and assign to each the most specific MeSH terms applicable - typically ten to twelve. Applying the MeSH vocabulary ensures that articles are uniformly indexed by subject, whatever the author's words.

Notes on MeSH Terms and Major MeSH Topic search fields:

·         To search the term only as a MeSH term, it must be qualified using the search field tags, e.g., [mh] for MeSH Terms or [majr] for MeSH Major Topic. A qualified term is checked against the MeSH Translation table and mapped to the appropriate MeSH term. Some concepts may map to two or more MeSH terms.  To turn off this mapping, enclose the MeSH term in double quotes and qualify with [mh], e.g., "cold" [mh].

·         MeSH terms are arranged hierarchically by subject categories with more specific terms arranged beneath broader terms. MeSH terms in PubMed automatically include the more specific MeSH terms in a search.

·         MeSH/Subheading Combinations:  To directly attach MeSH Subheadings, use the format MeSH Term/Subheading, e.g., neoplasms/diet therapy. You may also use the MEDLINE two letter MeSH Subheading abbreviations, e.g., neoplasms/dt. The [mh] tag is not required, however [majr] may be used, e.g., plants/genetics[majr]. Only one Subheading may be directly attached to a MeSH term.  For a MeSH/Subheading combination, PubMed always includes the more specific terms arranged beneath broader terms for the MeSH term and also includes the more specific terms arranged beneath broader Subheadings. The broader Subheading or one of its indention's will be directly attached to the MeSH term or one of its indention's. For example, hypertension/therapy also retrieves hypertension/diet therapy; hypertension/drug therapy; hypertension, malignant/therapy; hypertension, malignant/drug therapy, and so on, as well as hypertension/therapy.

·         To turn off the automatic inclusion of the more specific terms, use the syntax [field:noexp], e.g., hypertension [mh:noexp], or hypertension [majr:noexp], or hypertension/therapy [mh:noexp]. The latter example turns off the more specific terms in both parts, searching for only the one Subheading therapy attached directly to only the one MeSH term hypertension.

·         If parentheses are embedded in a MeSH term, replace the parentheses with a space and qualify with [mh] e.g., enter the MeSH term Benzo(a)pyrene as benzo a pyrene [mh].

·         MeSH terms can be selected for searching in the MeSH database and from Preview/Index.

• NLM Unique ID [JID] The alpha-numeric identifier for the cited journal that was assigned by NLM's Integrated Library System LOCATORplus, e.g., 0375267 [jid].
• Other Term [OT] Mostly non-MeSH subject terms (keywords), including NASA Space Flight Mission, assigned by an organization other than NLM. The Other Term data may be marked with an asterisk to indicate a major concept, however asterisks are for display only. You cannot search Other Terms with a major concept tag. The OT field is searchable with the Text Word [tw] and Other Term [ot] search tags.
• Owner Acronym that identifies the organization that supplied the citation data. Search using owner + the owner acronym, e.g. ownernasa.
• Pagination [PG] Enter only the first page number that the article appears on. The citation will display the full pagination of the article but this field is searchable using only the first page number. See Single Citation Matcher.
• Personal Name as Subject [PS] Use this search field tag to limit retrieval to where the name is the subject of the article, e.g., varmus h [ps]. Search names following the Author field format, e.g., varmus h[ps].
• Pharmacologic Action MeSH Terms [PA]  Substances known to have a particular pharmacologic action. Each pharmacologic action term index is created with the drug/substance terms known to have that affect. This includes both MeSH terms and terms for Supplementary Concept Records.
• Place of Publication [PL] Indicates the cited journal's country of publication. Geographic Place of Publication regions are not searchable. In order to retrieve records for all countries in a region (e.g., North America) it is necessary to OR together the countries of interest. Note: This field is not included in All Fields or Text Word retrieval.
• Publication Date [DP] The date that the article was published. Dates or date ranges must be searched using the format YYYY/MM/DD [dp], e.g. 1998/03/06 [dp] . The month and day are optional (e.g., 1998 [dp] or 1998/03 [dp]). To enter a date range, insert a colon (:) between each date (e.g., 1996:1998 [dp] or 1998/01:1998/04 [dp]).

Note:

Journals vary in the way the publication date appears on an issue. Some journals include just the year, whereas others include the year plus month or year plus month plus day. And, some journals use the year and season (e.g., Winter 1997). The publication date in the citation is recorded as it appears in the journal, e.g., 1996 [dp] or 1995:2000 [dp].

• Publication Type [PT] Describes the type of material the article represents (e.g., Review, Clinical Trial, Retracted Publication, Letter); see full listing, e.g., review[pt].
• Secondary Source ID [SI] The SI field identifies secondary source databanks and accession numbers of molecular sequences discussed in MEDLINE articles.  The field is composed of the source followed by a slash followed by an accession number and can be searched with one or both components, e.g., genbank [si], AF001892 [si], genbank/AF001892 [si].

The SI field and the Entrez sequence database links are not related. The PubMed links to these databases are created from the reference field of the GenBank or GenPept flatfile. These references include citations that discuss the specific sequence presented in these flatfiles.

•  Subset [SB] Method of restricting retrieval by Subject Subsets and Citation Status Subsets. Searchable with [SB]. Other Subsets are available for searching that do not use this search tag. See also Limits and LinkOut.
• Substance Name [NM] The name of a chemical discussed in the article. Synonyms to the Supplementary Concept Substance Name will automatically map when qualified with [nm]. This field was implemented in mid-1980. Many chemical names are searchable as MeSH terms before that date.
• Text Words [TW] Includes all words and numbers in the title, abstract, other abstract, MeSH terms, MeSH Subheadings, chemical substance names, personal name as subject, MEDLINE Secondary Source, and Other Terms typically non-MeSH subject terms (keywords), including NASA Space Flight Mission, assigned by an organization other than NLM.
• Title [TI] Words and numbers included in the title of a citation.
• Title/Abstract [TIAB] Words and numbers included in the title, abstract, and other abstract of a citation.
• Unique Identifier [UID]  PubMed Unique Identifier PMID. To search for the PMID type in the number with or without the search field tag [uid]. You can search for several ID numbers by entering each number in the query box separated by a space (e.g., 95091318 97465762); PubMed will OR the terms together.

To search in combination with other terms, you must enter the search field tag, e.g., smith [au] AND (10403340 [uid] OR vaccines [mh]).

• Volume [VI] The number of the journal volume in which an article is published. See Single Citation Matcher.
   

NLM's author indexing policy was and is as follows:

• 1966 - 1984: MEDLINE did not limit the number of authors.
• 1984 - 1995: The NLM limited the number of authors to 10, with "et al" as the eleventh occurrence.
• 1996 - 1999: The NLM increased the limit from 10 to 25. If there were more than 25 authors, the first 24 were listed, the last author was used as the 25th, and the twenty-sixth and beyond became "et al.".
• 2000 - Present: MEDLINE does not limit the number of authors.

Note:

Until 1990, only five transliterated (Japanese and Cyrillic) authors were included on each citation.  Since 1990, the first ten transliterated authors have been entered.  Chinese ideograms for co-authors are not transliterated at all if the journal lists only a single transliterated name in the table of contents.

    Addresses
      Bibliography
      Biography
      Case Reports
      Classical Article [for republished seminal articles]
      Clinical Conference [for reports of clinical case conferences only]
      Clinical Trial [includes all types and phases of clinical trials]
      Clinical Trial, Phase I
      Clinical Trial, Phase II
      Clinical Trial, Phase III
      Clinical Trial, Phase IV
      Comment [for comment on previously published article]
      Congresses
      Consensus Development Conference
      Consensus Development Conference, NIH
      Controlled Clinical Trial
      Corrected and Republished Article [consider Published Erratum]
      Dictionary
      Directory
      Duplicate Publication [duplication of material published elsewhere]
      Editorial
      Evaluation Studies
      Festschrift [for commemorative articles]
      Government Publications
      Guideline [for administrative, procedural guidelines in general]
      Historical Article [for articles about past events]
      Interview
      Journal Article [excludes Letter, Editorial, News, etc.]
      Lectures
      Legal Cases [includes law review, legal case study]
      Legislation
      Letter [includes letters to editor]
      Meta-Analysis [quantitative summary combining results of independent studies]
      Multicenter Study
      News [for medical or scientific news]
      Newspaper Article
      Overall [collection of articles; consider Meeting Report]
      Patient Education Handout
      Periodical Index [for cumulated indexes to journals]
      Practice Guideline [for specific health care guidelines]
      Published Erratum [consider Corrected and Republished Article]
      Randomized Controlled Trial
      Retraction of Publication [author's statement of retraction]
      Retracted Publication [article later retracted by author]
      Review [includes all reviews; consider specific types]
      Review, Academic [comprehensive, critical, or analytical review]
      Review Literature [general review article; consider other reviews]
      Review, Multicase [review with epidemiological applications]
      Review of Reported Cases [review of known cases of a disease]
      Review, Tutorial [broad review for non-specialist or student]
      Scientific Integrity Review [U.S. Office of Scientific Integrity reports]
      Technical Report
      Twin Study [for studies of twins]
      Validation Studies
 

The purpose of this table is to define the data tags that compose the PubMed MEDLINE display format. The tags are presented in alphabetical order. Some of the tags (e.g., CIN) are not mandatory and therefore will not be found in every PubMed MEDLINE display format. Other tags (e.g., AU, MH, RN) may occur multiple times in one record.

Not all fields are searchable in PubMed. Information on searching with tags is available at Search Field Descriptions and Tags.
 

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH)

¹ No longer being assigned. New Institutes are AR (NIAMS) and DK (NIDDK).
² No longer being assigned. Now part of RR (NCRR).
 

HEALTH RESOURCES AND SERVICES ADMINISTRATION (HRSA)

FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION (FDA)

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (CDC)

ALCOHOL, DRUG ABUSE, AND MENTAL HEALTH ADMINISTRATION (ADAMHA)
See codes under Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and codes AA, DA and MH under National Institutes of Health.

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF HEALTH (OASH)

SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ADMINISTRATION (SAMHSA)

AGENCY FOR HEALTH CARE POLICY AND RESEARCH (AHCPR)

Source: Information Systems Branch, Division of Research Grants, National Institutes of Health: July 1993