Year-End PubMed Activities

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is currently involved in PubMed year-end processing activities.

During this time you may find some unusual patterns in what your regular PubMed searches and searches saved in your My NCBI account retrieve.

Annual changes in MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terminology and hierarchy is one of the most important changes that occur during this time. As a rule, some new MeSH and subheadings (qualifiers) are added; a few MeSH terms are deleted, some MESH terms move to other locations in the MeSH hierarchy, etc. For example, a new MeSH “Progression-Free Survival” will be added; “anastrozole” and “letrozole”, currently belonging in Supplementary Concept category, will be promoted to MeSH; a qualifier (subheading) “manpower” will cease to be.

If you have searches saved in your My NCBI account and/or you are getting PubMed e-mail updates, you may want to consult with a Research Informationist to ensure your saved searches are not affected by the annual changes in the MeSH terminology.  Don’t hesitate to ASK US!

To learn more, check out the announcement regarding the year-end processing activities for 2019.