I can haz eazy cardiology literature search?

January 29, 2008 7:07 AM

Looking for a quick and easy online way to search the medical/scientific literature for new publications on a particular group of topics.

I have a colleague who has to track certain topics in interventional cardiology; she lacks the familiarity with the literature, etc. that I have. I want to recommend a simple solution that will allow her to get all the recent publications by searching/querying only one or a few sites.

We are only concerned with recent publications, and this will be an ongoing project, so the search should be easy enough that it can be conducted on a weekly schedule.

posted by Mister_A to science & nature (9 comments total)

PubMed has a number of options to deal with this. After doing a search, you can set up a custom RSS feed by using the Send to drop-down list. You can also use their My NCBI feature to send automatic e-mail updates, or simply store the previous results and tell you if there have been new ones when you check the web site.
posted by grouse at 7:22 AM on January 29, 2008

Wow, really great stuff on PubMed. I have been using it in a 20th century way, thanks grouse!
posted by Mister_A at 7:40 AM on January 29, 2008

there's also google scholar, though I don't think there's anything to update so easily
posted by craven_morhead at 7:50 AM on January 29, 2008

Ah, literature searches. (note: I'm coming from the chemistry side of things, so some of my suggestions may not apply to cardiology) One site that I've used for a number of years, Web of Science, has a number of ways to search for topics and follow the work of specific authors. SciFinder is also a fantastic tool for searching the literature, but mostly within the realm of chemical knowledge. It, however, requires a subscription to access, so check with your library. Alternative to the PubMed suggestion, you can hit each cardiology journal website and see if they will allow you to set up an RSS feed -- this will give you massive amounts of information, most of which will not apply to your topic of interest. I have been trying to find an RSS reader that will allow me to filter the feeds to certain topics, but haven't had much luck there.

Good luck!
posted by rand at 8:07 AM on January 29, 2008

Pubmed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=PubMed
Heres another that a lot of physicians/students use: http://www.uptodate.com/index.asp
posted by uncballzer at 8:39 AM on January 29, 2008

Thanks for the great suggestions, everyone. Keep 'em coming.
posted by Mister_A at 8:51 AM on January 29, 2008

I use the Pubcrawler alerts. It's been around for years... well since I was in grad school in 2000, which is why I've never switched to the "My NCBI" service. It's good.

Also, it has the tagline: "It goes to the library, you go to the pub" which is a sentiment I can get behind.
posted by gaspode at 9:20 AM on January 29, 2008

Ovid is another engine that searches across multiple biomedical databases, but does require a subscription.
posted by NucleophilicAttack at 9:23 AM on January 29, 2008

If your colleague is running OSX, then Sente is an incredibly easy way of doing this. It's a standalone app that automates searching of PubMed and Ovid (and other databases). You specify any combination of search terms, dates, or authors, and each time you launch it, it updates all the searches.

Alternatively you could sign up for "e-alerts" from Blackwell, who will email the table of contents from the Journal of Interventional Cardiology (and other relevant journals) each time it is published.
posted by roofus at 9:52 AM on January 29, 2008