It’s the most wonderful time of the year!!

Well, perhaps that’s a bit of an over-exaggeration, but it’s exciting nonetheless! The National Library of Medicine has released its annual list of MeSH changes, including highly anticipated NEW MeSH (Medical Subject Heading) terms for 2021!

The list covers a variety of changes and updates made to MeSH, including:

• Updated terms — these are MeSH terms that have been deleted, changed, or replaced to reflect more updated terminology
  • 14 terms were updated for 2021
• New terms — these are brand new MeSH terms added
  • 277 terms were added for 2021
• Special projects — new terms added in specific subject areas to address needs
  • New behavioral and social science headings
  • New cardiovascular headings
  • New food/beverage headings
  • New infection headings
  • New organism headings
  • New persons headings

One important thing to remember is how to modify saved searches to account for the changes made to MeSH, as the changes will take place in mid-December 2020 and newly indexed citations will be reflective of these changes.

COVID-19 and its impact on MeSH

It makes sense that COVID-19 has been the cause of many of the changes going into 2021. From the onset of the pandemic, NLM was adding supplementary concepts (SCRs) throughout the year to include important concepts to help navigate the large amount of COVID-19 literature, but these supplementary concepts have limited functionality. So with 2021, NLM has announced an entire suite of COVID-19 and SARS-Cov2 related MeSH terms.

Some notable new terms related to the pandemic:

• COVID-19 — was a supplementary concept, now promoted to MeSH term
• SARS-CoV-2 — was a supplementary concept, now promoted to MeSH term
• COVID-19 Testing — was supplementary concept (Covid-19 diagnostic testing), now promoted to MeSH term
• COVID-19 Serological Testing — previously mapped to COVID-19 diagnostic testing
• COVID-19 Nucleic Acid Testing — previously mapped to COVID-19 diagnostic testing
• Physical Distancing — previously mapped to “Social Distancing”, now differentiated as “Psychological Distancing” and “Physical Distancing”
• Teleworking — new MeSH term
• Return to School — new MeSH term
• N95 Respirators — new MeSH term
• Disease Hotspots — new MeSH term
• Chain of Infection — new MeSH term

Cochrane library, a collection of databases containing high-quality evidence in healthcare, is produced by Cochrane collaboration.

Cochrane Library includes Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), and Cochrane Clinical Answers.
Most heavily used databases are Database of Systematic Reviews and Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) .

Finding Cochrane Reviews

Cochrane Systematic Reviews are produced by Cochrane Collaboration Review Group members who use explicit methodology “aimed at minimizing bias” and often viewed as the gold standard for conducting systematic reviews. This methodology is outlined in Cochrane Handbook. Researchers conducting systematic reviews outside of Cochrane collaboration can still use Cochrane methodology as a benchmark.

All current Cochrane Reviews can be found not just on the Cochrane Library itself, but via other databases as well, such as Pubmed and Embase. The biggest difference between searching within Cochrane Library compared to other databases, is that in Cochrane Library only the current or most recent review is retrieved in a search, whereas all versions can be located when searching PubMed or Embase (as seen in the example here). All Cochrane Reviews, including the superseded versions, can be found in Cochrane Library by browsing all issues of the CDSR.

Finding Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) content

CENTRAL contains mostly RCTs (randomized controlled trials) which come from the outside sources, e.g. bibliographic databases such as Pubmed, Embase and CINAHL, unpublished sources, hand searching the literature, and web sources such as clinical trials.gov, World Health Organization.
Although trials ingested from Pubmed, Embase, CINAHL and select other sources can be found separately via those databases and websites, CENTRAL as a whole can be searched only via the Cochrane Library.

The advantage of finding controlled trials via bibliographic databases Pubmed, Embase or CINAHL separately lies in the use of the advanced functionality of those databases, all of which may not be available in the Cochrane Library original interface. Yet, since CENTRAL contains controlled trial records from other sources as well, it should be always searched by researchers conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, in addition to bibliographic databases.

Still using PubMed Legacy? Please make moves to switch to New PubMed this month!

NLM has committed to providing access to legacy PubMed through October 31, 2020. The retirement date for legacy PubMed will be communicated in advance via banners on the legacy site. However, the sooner the better for switching over.

You can continue to find legacy PubMed at https://pmlegacy.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ until it is retired.

If you have not become familiar with New PubMed, which became the default platform in September, be sure to check it out soon!

For questions regarding the transition from PubMed Legacy to New PubMed, please see the NLM’s New PubMed Transition FAQ’s.

You can also attend one of the MSK Library’s New PubMed workshops to learn about searching PubMed and the new features it includes.