On Doctoring MEDLINE searches, with reference librarian comments, March 2000

The question was

survival benefit in treated vs. untreated multiple myeloma

1     Multiple myeloma/mo,dt,rt,ep,su,th [Mortality, Drug    results=1969   
Therapy, Radiotherapy, Epidemiology, Surgery, Therapy]
2     limit 1 to yr=1993-2000    results= 1591   
3     Follow-up studies/ or Survival rate/    results= 134645   
4     2 and 3    results= 247   
5     limit 4 to (local holdings and human and english language)    results= 137   
6     from 5 keep 1,11-12,16,22-23,25    results= 7   

Reference Librarian comments

Good job. I think this is a fairly difficult search, actually. I tried it myself, taking several different approaches, and I'm not sure I got anything particularly different from what you did. You're using MEDLINE nicely. I would probably always "explode" the MeSH heading, and frequently I check the "focus" box, to make the retrieval a little smaller and a little more "on target." But you're thinking just right...