Objective 4c: Translating Search for use in EMBASE (optional, search 5)

Your group may choose to search EMBASE.   An EMBASE search is not a required part of the group assignment.

Why would you search EMBASE?

• EMBASE indexes many journals not indexed by MEDLINE.
• If published evidence on your topic is sparse, an EMBASE search may identify additional evidence.
• EMBASE is computer-indexed.  Essentially all records are indexed —  so indexing-dependent filters can be used without worrying about losing an unindexed record set.

How?

• You just prepared a search strategy for use in ClinicalTrials.gov by removing any tags (like [tiab] ) and filters from your PubMed search strategy.  Copy the search you prepared for use in ClinicalTrials.gov.  If you had to remove some of the synonyms for your search concepts to get the whole search to run in ClinicalTrials.gov, return to the version you saved before you removed any of these synonyms.  For this tutorial search, this is:

(Eculizumab* OR 219685-50-4 OR h5G1.1* OR h5g11 OR h5G1-1 OR 5G1.1 OR Soliris OR Elizaria OR Alexion ) AND (((intermittent OR paroxysmal ) AND ( haemoglobinur* OR hemoglobinur* OR haematur* OR hematur* OR haematinur* OR hematinur*)) OR PNH OR Marchiafava-Micheli) AND (Clot OR Clots OR budd-chiari OR embol* OR postthromb* OR thromb*)

• Go to EMBASE (In the future you can reach EMBASE by going to the Library homepage, clicking on “Resources”, clicking on “Literature Databases”, and, finally, clicking on “EMBASE.”)
• Click on the “Advanced” link in the row of options under the blue horizontal bar.
• Paste your revised strategy into the search box.
• de-check the EMBASE mapping options (see box in screenshot below).

• Click the “Search” button.
• You search will probably retrieve an overwhelming number of results.  Don’t despair.  You will be filtering the results extensively.

Remove non-Human and non-English (if desired)

• Click on “Quick Limits”
• Select the “Humans” and “English” limits if desired.
• Click the “Search” button to apply the limits.

Consider using proximity operators

If the search was retrieving a lot of irrelevant articles that contained  paroxysmal/intermittent words that were not located close to the hemoglobinuria words, we could replace the —

AND

— between the “paroxysmal” subconcept and the “hemoglobinuria” subconcept with a proximity operator, either —

NEAR/x

or

NEXT/x

(x must be replaced with an integer.  NEAR allows the adjacent concepts to appear in either order.  NEXT retrieves items only if the adjacent concepts are in the order stated. )

These operators force the search engine to look for representatives of   the adjacent concepts  within x words of each other.  If this was needed I would probably use an x of  between 2 and 5.

Our search —

(Eculizumab* OR 219685-50-4 OR h5G1.1* OR h5g11 OR h5G1-1 OR 5G1.1 OR Soliris OR Elizaria OR Alexion ) AND (((intermittent OR paroxysmal ) AND ( haemoglobinur* OR hemoglobinur* OR haematur* OR hematur* OR haematinur* OR hematinur*)) OR PNH OR Marchiafava-Micheli) AND (Clot OR Clots OR budd-chiari OR embol* OR postthromb* OR thromb*)

— might become —

(Eculizumab* OR 219685-50-4 OR h5G1.1* OR h5g11 OR h5G1-1 OR 5G1.1 OR Soliris OR Elizaria OR Alexion ) AND (((intermittent OR paroxysmal ) NEXT/4 ( haemoglobinur* OR hemoglobinur* OR haematur* OR hematur* OR haematinur* OR hematinur*)) OR PNH OR Marchiafava-Micheli) AND (Clot OR Clots OR budd-chiari OR embol* OR postthromb* OR thromb*)

The fact that this alteration isn’t needed is demonstrated by the fact that the search strategy revision produces little change in the number of search results.

Consider focusing search on specific fields

Because EMBASE is computer-indexed, the indexing sometimes includes headings for topics that are just mentioned in an article’s discussion.  You may want to focus on articles that mention your drug concept in their title and mention your other concepts in the title, author keywords (5 or so words or phrases an author picks that describe the focus of the article), or abstract.    To make these changes:

• Place your cursor immediately (no spaces intervening) after the final parenthesis that encloses your drug terms.
• Click on the “Fields” menu that is present below the search box.
• Click on the “Article title :ti” option.  The :ti tag should appear in your search strategy.
• Now place your cursor immediately after (no spaces intervening) the final parenthesis that encloses one of your non-drug concepts.
• The “Fields” menu should already be open so go ahead and select the “Article title :ti”, “Author keywords :kw”, and “Abstract :ab” options.
• The :ti,kw,ab tag should appear in your search strategy (the order of the two letter codes may differ).
• Repeat this process for any other non-drug concepts.
• Click the “Search” button.

Remove undesired publication types

To remove publication types from an EMBASE search, you first have to select and limit to those types.  EMBASE AND’s the publication types to your search strategy.  You change the AND to a NOT.

• Find and open the “Publication Types” section of the filters/analysis column on the left.
• Select the undesired publication types.  Some of the types may not be visible without scrolling.

• click the “Apply” button.
• Scroll up to the search box.
• Change the AND to a NOT

• Click the “Search” button.

Limit to desired publication types (trials)

Now it’s time to limit to desired “study types”.

• Open the “Study Types” area in the left-hand filters column
• Scroll through the list of study types.  Select all the trial types.  Do not select the “___trial as topic” types.   It may be helpful to use your browser’s “find” feature to find instances of the word “trial”
• Click the “Apply” button.

Document the search

• Click the boxes in front of each of the essential searches in your search history.

In the example below, search #11 produced the final result.  Search #10 is an essential part  of this search strategy, and search #8 is an essential part of search #10.

• Click the “Print View” above the “History” table.
• Copy the search table in the “Print View” and paste it into your search strategy figure.
• If “Print view” doesn’t work, you can use the “Export” link to export a csv (comma delimited) file that can be opened with Excel.