Skip Navigation Bar

Fact Sheet
PubMed®: MEDLINE® Retrieval on the World Wide Web

PubMed (pubmed.gov) is a free resource developed and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine® (NLM).

PubMed

  • Provides free access to MEDLINE, NLM's database of citations and abstracts in the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, health care systems, and preclinical sciences.
  • Links to full-text articles found in PubMed Central or at publisher web sites, and other related resources.
  • Provides Advanced search, Clinical Queries search filters, and Special Queries pages.
  • Links to related articles and provides "ads" for other data that may be of interest.
  • Includes automatic e-mailing of search updates, the ability to save records, and filters for search results using "My NCBI".
  • Includes a spell checker feature.
  • Links to NCBI molecular biology resources.
  • Adds citations Tuesday through Saturday.

In addition to MEDLINE citations, PubMed also contains:

  • In-process citations which provide a record for an article before it is indexed with MeSH® and added to MEDLINE or converted to out-of-scope status.
  • Citations that precede the date that a journal was selected for MEDLINE indexing.
  • Some OLDMEDLINE citations that have not yet been updated with current vocabulary and converted to MEDLINE status.
  • Citations to articles that are out-of-scope (e.g., covering plate tectonics or astrophysics) from certain MEDLINE journals, primarily general science and general chemistry journals, for which the life sciences articles are indexed with MeSH for MEDLINE.

  • Citations to some additional life science journals that submit full-text articles to PubMedCentral® and receive a qualitative review by NLM.

MEDLINE

MEDLINE is NLM's bibliographic database of citations and abstracts, currently from approximately 5,400 biomedical journals published in the United States and worldwide. Coverage extends back to 1948.

All citations in MEDLINE are assigned Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®) from NLM's controlled vocabulary to assist users in their searches.

For additional information on MEDLINE see the MEDLINE/PubMed Resources Guide.

PubMed is Easy to Use

Simply enter your search topics - one or more terms - and click Search. PubMed can be searched using MeSH terms, author names, title words, text words or phrases, journal names, or any combination of these. Retrieved citations are displayed and their associated abstracts can be selected for viewing. A unique feature of PubMed is the ability to instantly find related articles for any citation.

Additional search modes offer the ability to perform more complex searches by specifying data fields, age groups, gender, or human or animal studies. A special clinical queries page provides customized searches for studies based on etiology, diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment of a particular disease. Systematic reviews of a topic and medical genetics can also be searched here. Search results can be viewed or downloaded in various formats, including a format suitable for bibliographic management software.

PubMed's LinkOut feature provides access to a wide variety of relevant web-accessible online resources, including full-text publications, biological databases, consumer health information, research tools, and more. Currently more than fifty percent of PubMed records are linked to the full-text on publishers' web sites. Users may have to register, or there may be a fee or subscription required to access the full-text.

Publisher Participation

Publishers whose journals are indexed in MEDLINE are encouraged to submit citation and abstract data electronically for inclusion in PubMed. Electronic submissions ensure that citations and abstracts are available to the public more rapidly, assignment of MeSH terms will take place more quickly, and each citation can display a link to the publisher's web site for access to full-text. Publishers are also encouraged to submit full text for inclusion in PubMed Central.

Further Information

Contact the National Library of Medicine at (888) 346-3656 or by email at: custserv@nlm.nih.gov

Mailing Address
National Center for Biotechnology Information
National Library of Medicine
Bldg. 38A, Room 8N-803
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20894

A complete list of NLM Fact Sheets is available at:
(alphabetical list) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/factsheets.html
(subject list): http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/factsubj.html

or write to:

FACT SHEETS
Office of Communications and Public Liaison
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, Maryland 20894