Table of Contents: 2013 NOVEMBER–DECEMBER No. 395
Tybaert S. MEDLINE Data Changes — 2014. NLM Tech Bull. 2013 Nov-Dec;(395):e6.
This article collects the notable data changes made to MEDLINE during annual National Library of Medicine (NLM) maintenance known as Year-End Processing (YEP) for 2014.
For information about how this maintenance affects the NLM schedule for adding indexed MEDLINE citations to PubMed, see the article, MEDLINE/PubMed Year-End Processing Activities. Two additional resources, Annual MEDLINE/PubMed Year-End Processing (YEP): Impact on Searching During Fall 2013 and Annual MEDLINE/PubMed Year-End Processing (YEP): Background Information, include examples of typical changes that take place in MEDLINE citations during YEP.
The MeSH Browser currently points to the 2014 MeSH vocabulary with a link to the 2013 MeSH Vocabulary. Searchers should consult the Browser to find MeSH headings of interest and their relationships to other headings. The Browser contains MeSH Heading records that may include scope notes, annotations, entry terms, history notes, allowable qualifiers (subheadings), previous headings and other information. It also includes Subheading records and Supplementary Concept Records (SCRs) for substances and diseases that are not MeSH Headings.
The MeSH Section homepage provides a link under "All About MeSH" to the Introduction of 2014 MeSH and under "Obtaining MeSH" to download electronic versions.
The MeSH Tree Structures are also available online in both PDF and HTML formats with all indented terms showing.
For highlights about 2014 MeSH, see the forthcoming article, What's New for 2014 MeSH.
The PubMed MeSH database and translation tables will be updated to reflect 2014 MeSH in mid-December when YEP activities are complete and the newly maintained MEDLINE data are available in PubMed.
MEDLINE records with updated MeSH will be in PubMed in mid-December 2013. See "Modifying a Saved Search Strategy" for details on revising My NCBI saved searches.
[Editor's note: added June 9, 2014: MEDLINE citation maintenance XML files are no longer available for download.]
The MeSH Section homepage provides links to descriptions of MeSH maintenance. The About Updates link under the "MEDLINE Citation Maintenance" section explains how NLM prepares the changes in a machine-readable form for others to use. To access the XML files for the tasks processed for this maintenance, click on the "Download XML Files" link under this same section; the 2014 changes should be available sometime in January 2014. This information is helpful for those individuals or organizations using MeSH headings in their own application (such as indexing curricula guides) and want to update those applications with the new version of MeSH.
304 new MeSH Headings were added to MeSH in 2014.
Typically, NLM does not retrospectively re-index MEDLINE citations with new MeSH Heading concepts. Therefore, searching PubMed for a new MeSH term tagged with [mh] or [majr] effectively limits retrieval to citations indexed after the term was introduced. PubMed Automatic Term Mapping (ATM) expands an untagged subject search to include both MeSH Terms and All Fields index terms and may retrieve relevant citations indexed before the introduction of a new MeSH term. Searchers may consult the MeSH Browser or the MeSH database to see the Previous Indexing terms most likely used for a particular concept before the new MeSH Heading was introduced.
This year 48 MeSH Headings were either changed or deleted and replaced with more up-to-date terminology. During YEP, NLM updates MeSH headings on MEDLINE citations.
Examples of new MeSH headings of special interest to searchers are highlighted below by Category. You can browse all of the new 2014 concepts on the MeSH New Descriptors Web page.
In addition to changes and deletions of MeSH terms on MEDLINE citations, YEP includes other adjustments to reflect 2014 MeSH vocabulary and to enhance search retrieval. These follow-on adjustments are largely the adding of more MeSH Headings or Supplementary Concept Record Names to citations to help searchers refine retrieval. In some cases, the changes clarify areas where a single concept existed before, but it is now represented by two or more specific concepts.
These types of changes, along with others documented on the Annual MEDLINE/PubMed Year-End Processing (YEP): Background Information Web page, suggest the importance of routinely using the PubMed Details feature when searching to see how terms are mapped with the new year's vocabulary and then checking the MeSH Browser or the MeSH database for clarification. Additional information is also available in the article, Skill Kit: The Effects of Year End Processing (YEP) on Saved Searches or RSS Feeds.
Three new publication types have been introduced for 2014 MeSH. They are:
This year during YEP, NLM will again retrospectively replace certain MeSH heading/subheading combinations, known as Entry Combinations, with the new precoordinated MeSH heading. If you get no retrieval for a MeSH Heading/subheading combination check the heading in the 2014 MeSH Browser to see if the Entry Combination information indicates a different term.
There are 21 new Entry Combinations for 2014.
Previous MeSH Heading/Subheading (Entry Combination) |
Replaced-by Heading for 2014 |
---|---|
3-Hydroxybutyric Acid/analogs & derivatives | Hydroxybutyrates |
Alcoholism/congenital | Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders |
Aminocaproic Acid/analogs & derivatives | Aminocaproates |
Dihydrouracil Dehydrogenase (NADP)/deficiency | Dihydropyrimidine Dehydrogenase Deficiency |
DNA Gyrase/antagonists & inhibitors | Topoisomerase II Inhibitors |
Drug Therapy/adverse effects | Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions |
Glutamates/antagonists & inhibitors | Excitatory Amino Acid Antagonists |
Glutamic Acid/agonists | Excitatory Amino Acid Agonists |
Glutamic Acid/antagonists & inhibitors | Excitatory Amino Acid Antagonists |
H(+)-K(+)-Exchanging ATPase/antagonists & inhibitors | Proton Pump Inhibitors |
Hand/transplantation | Hand Transplantation |
Hyoscyamine/analogs & derivatives | Atropine Derivatives |
Pharmaceutical Preparations/adverse effects | Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions |
Pharmaceutical Preparations/toxicity | Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions |
Phospholipases A2/antagonists & inhibitors | Phospholipase A2 Inhibitors |
Prolyl Hydroxylases/antagonists & inhibitors | Prolyl-Hydroxylase Inhibitors |
Proton Pumps/antagonists & inhibitors | Proton Pump Inhibitors |
Receptors, Neurokinin-1/antagonists & inhibitors | Neurokinin-1 Receptor Antagonists |
Sodium-Potassium-Chloride Symporters/antagonists & inhibitors | Sodium Potassium Chloride Symporter Inhibitors |
Solute Carrier Family 12, Member 3/antagonists & inhibitors | Sodium Chloride Symporter Inhibitors |
Sports for Persons with Disabilities/injuries | Athletic Injuries |
Effective with the implementation of the new PubMed system in mid-December and going forward, NLM will include Author Affiliations for all Authors, Corporate Authors and Investigators, if the data are supplied by the publisher in their XML submissions for MEDLINE indexed journals. To prepare for and support this change, NLM ceased quality control review and editing of the author affiliation field in the MEDLINE citations as of September 30, 2013.
[Editor's note: For additional information on author affiliation see Author, Corporate Author, and Collaborator Affiliation Display Changes.]
Starting soon NLM will be including additional Databank names in MEDLINE citations. Currently NLM includes data from the 13 registries in the Secondary Source (SI) field. The additional data being carried include 13 new WHO Primary Clinical Trial Registries; UniProt databanks; and several NCBI databanks.
In November 2013, NLM added 505 new labels to the list of structured abstract labels. This brings the total of vetted and mapped labels to 2,454.
By
Sara Tybaert
MEDLARS Management Section