Development of a highly sensitive search strategy for the retrieval of reports of controlled trials using PubMed

To develop, through revision of the Cochrane Collaboration search strategy for OVID-MEDLINE, a highly sensitive search strategy to retrieve reports of controlled trials using PubMed.

The original highly sensitive Cochrane strategy was revised to take into account additional Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and other terminology as well as the current unique features of PubMed. We compared the retrieval of the revised strategy with that of the original Cochrane strategy before and after translation of the strategies into PubMed format. Finally, we used a gold standard database of reports of controlled trials identified by electronic and hand search of selected journals to test the revised strategy in PubMed format.