This guide will take approximately 5 minutes to complete.
The purpose of this guide is to help you identify whether specific markers are used as surrogate molecular endpoints in disease Y.
Step 0: Login
Refer to https://med.causaly.com
TIP! In case you’ve forgotten your password, you can recover it here.
A. Intelligent Search
Step 1. Use the Intelligent Search to look for outcomes measured in disease X
To initiate your search, use the Intelligent Search on the Causaly home page (Figure 1).
Figure 1. The Intelligent Search on the Causaly homepage
Begin your search by adding the disease of interest in the input box and select the most relevant Concept from the suggestions below. To explore the clinical endpoints measured in a disease of interest, add the necessary search terms (i.e. outcome, endpoint, clinical assessment) in the input box and select the most relevant question from the suggested search topics (Figure 2).
Example: Clinical endpoints measured in Diabetes Mellitus (link)
Figure 2. In Intelligent Search, explore the clinical endpoints measured in a disease of interest by typing keywords and selecting the most relevant search topic from the suggestions below.
TIP! As you type, the system suggests relevant Concepts below with the associated amount of evidence on the right. Based on your research objectives, you can select the Concept most relevant to your search.
Browse your results and investigate the clinical endpoints presented in the dendrogram view (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Explore clinical endpoints measured in a disease of interest in a dendrogram view.
TIP! Before exploring the dendrogram, review the filters that the system has selected by default as clinical endpoints on the left-hand side.
Step 2: Use additional keywords to refine your search
To find outcomes affected by a specific biomarker in a disease of interest, use additional keywords in the input box. The proposed search topics will now change depending on the new keyword and you can explore the results by clicking on the search topic of interest (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Explore how clinical outcomes measured in a disease of interest are affected by a specific biomarker by adding keywords in the input box and selecting the most relevant search topic.
Example: Outcomes affected by Hba1c in Diabetes Mellitus patients (link)
Results will now include publications that report clinical outcomes studied in Diabetes Mellitus patients in publications that report HbA1c (Figure 5).
Figure 5: The dendrogram view when looking for clinical outcomes examined in DM patients, in articles related to HbA1c.
TIP!
- You can either navigate to the ‘Articles’ tab to explore all the supporting evidence, or select the ‘Relationships’ tab to further investigate a specific relationship.
- Clicking on an endpoint of interest in the dendrogram view will reveal a sidebar with the supporting evidence for that relationship. You can further explore the evidence by clicking on the “Inspect” button at the top of this sidebar.
- Click on the “Save” button to save your search and create alerts to receive notifications when new data regarding a relationship of interest becomes available (Figure 6).
Figure 6: Click on the “Save” button to save searches.