Answered By: Cindy Schmidt
Last Updated: Dec 25, 2016     Views: 183

Probably not.  There are several reasons for differences in retrieval:

  1. PubMed is updated continuously.  EBSCOhost MEDLINE seems to be updated about once a week.
  2. PubMed translates the search for records containing a specific keyword into a search for records containing that keyword and/or records containing the related MeSH heading.  EBSCOhost's mapping of keywords is not so clear.
  3. EBSCohost does not explode subheadings.  If you run a PubMed search for -- "Mutliple Myeloma/therapy"[mesh] -- you'll retrieve about 7530 records. An EBSCOhost MEDLINE search for -- MH "Multiple Myeloma+/TH" -- only retrieves about 2920 records. An EBSCOhost search for -- MH "Multiple Myeloma+/DH/DT/NU/PC/RH/RT/SU/TH" -- , on the other hand, retrieves nearly 7530 records. DH/DT/NU/PC/RH/RT/SU/ are all abbreviations for subheadings that would be retrieved by the exploded TH (therapy) subheading.
  4. EBSCOhost is capable of searching for more key-phrases than PubMed.

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