Agreement between Medline searches using the Medline-CD-Rom and Internet PubMed, BioMedNet, Medscape and Gateway search-engines

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"Objective To compare the information obtained from the Medline databaseusing Internet commercial search engines with that obtained from a compactdisc (Medline-CD).Methods An agreement study was carried out based on 101 clinical scenariosprovided by specialists in internal medicine, pharmacy, gynaecologyobstetrics,surgery and paediatrics. 175 search strategies were employedusing the connector AND plus text within quotation marks. The search waslimited to 1991-1999. Internet search-engines were selected by commoncriteria. Identical search strategies were independently applied to andmasked from Internet search engines, as well as the Medline-CD.Results 3,488 articles were obtained using 129 search strategies. Agreementwith the Medline-CD was 54% for PubMed, 57% for Gateway, 54% forMedscape and 65 % for BioMedNet. The highest agreement rate for a givenspeciality (paediatrics) was 78,1 % for BioMedNet, having greater -/- than+/+ agreement.Conclusions Even though free access to Medline has encouraged theboom and growth of evidence-based medicine, these results must be consideredwithin the context of which search engine was selected for doing thesearches. The internet search engines studied showed a poor agreementwith the Medline-CD, the rate of agreement differing according to speciality,thus significantly affecting searches and their reproducibility. Software designedfor conducting Medline database searches, including the Medline-CD, must be standardised and validated."