How To Use the Keyword Search

Beyond searching for concepts in Causaly, you can also use keyword search to scope the articles you are interested in. Keyword search is available across modules (intelligent search, advanced search, epidemiology) to help you effectively refine the results based on additional criteria relating to your research question.

You can enter multiple terms at the same time, similar to how you would use Pubmed.

On top of capabilities offered by Pubmed, our AI classification filters help you effectively distinguish primary/secondary research as well as study design paremeters.

For more advanced query construction, you can use the following table as a quick reference on how you could use keyword search. At the end of the chapter, there are several examples provided.

Informational search queries	Example
Automatic Term Mapping (ATM) Causaly matches entered search terms against a MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) translation table. This is the same approach that PubMed uses to optimize free text search as described here.	User input: Heart Attack → System searches: "myocardial infarction"[MeSH Terms] OR ("myocardial"[All Fields] AND "infarction"[All Fields]) OR "myocardial infarction"[All Fields] OR ("heart"[All Fields] AND "attack"[All Fields]) OR "heart attack"[All Fields]
Boolean query A boolean query allows you to combine keywords or phrases with logical operators such as OR, AND, NOT to further produce relevant results. Search terms enclosed in parentheses are processed first. If no operator is used, the AND operator is applied by default.	(diabetes AND hypertension) NOT animals
Quotes (“”) By using double quotes, e.g. “diabetes”, the automatic term mapping can be overridden and the system looks for a perfect match of the term entered.	“Heart Attack” → “Heart Attack”[All Fields]
*Wildcard operator ()** To search for all terms that begin with a word, enter the word followed by an asterisk (*), the wildcard operator. Truncation turns off automatic term mapping	Economic b* → Returns documents with terms such as: economic burden, economic burdens, economic benefit, economic bar
Proximity operator(~) Find publications that contain entered search terms (in any order) within a specified number of words of each other. It currently can be coupled and used for searches in title [TI] or title/abstract [TIAB].	Economic burden[TI~2] → retrieves articles that contain both terms in the article title with a maximum distance of 2 words in-between.
Field tags Enter a search term qualified by a field tag. Using a field tag disables the ATM (Automated Mapping).	diabetes[MH] multiple sclero*[ALL] clinical trial[PT] 2018:2020[DP] 2018/01:2018/06[DP] PMID26913870[UID]
Pharmacological Action Pharmacological Action is a subset of MeSH. It uses the tag [pa] for all substances identified as having the same pharmacological action (similar to a drug class). For a complete list click here.	bladder cancer AND Antioxidants[PA]

Examples on keyword search

Heart diseases → automatic term mapping is enabled: looks at all fields and all combinations
“Heart diseases” → looks for heart diseases in all fields (title, abstract, MeSH term) but automatic term mapping is disabled
Heart diseases[TIAB] → looks only at the keywords in title and abstract, not MeSH term
Virus AND (vitamin C OR magnesium) → looks for the term virus, and then for vitamin C or magnesium, in all fields (title, abstract, MeSH term)
diabetes AND 2015:2016[DP] → looks for diabetes in all fields in articles published between 2015-2016
(glioma OR lymphoma) NOT melanoma AND clinical trial[pt] → articles that reference glioma or lymphoma but not melanoma, in all fields (title, abstract, MeSH term) and have publication type annotated as clinical trial.
random* allocat*[TIAB~2]: Returns documents with terms such as: randomly allocated, random allocation, randomized allocation; found in title or abstract, at a maximum distance of two words from each other.
Ibrutinib AND 0.81:[PT_CR_AI] → retrieves only AI predicted case report studies with values higher than 81%