In order to complete a thorough literature search for liver venous malformation (liver
VM) and Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (HHT), we used the OVID database
through the St.Michael’s Hospital library website.
We wanted to obtain every possible article that contained information about both
HHT and liver VM. We utilized the database OVID medline and searched for articles
between the dates of 1966 to present.
We entered key words that pertain to HHT and LiverVMs one at a time. OVID
maps these key words to Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). We double checked scope
notes on MeSH heading to make sure that the subject headings included information
relevant to my search. Once we were reassured that the scope of the MeSH term HHT
for example, applied to the search, we exploded the search results in order to gain access
to all of the articles which contain that subject. We then included keywords pertaining to
both HHT and liver VM one at a time. We included keywords within the search by
including the search word in ovid “HHT.mp” for example, where the “.mp” is a term to
search for keywords. The keywords for HHT and liver VM were included in the search
to ensure that in case HHT and liver VM were not included in articles’ MeSH headings,
that any extra relevant articles were not missed. We also made sure to utilize the
truncation term “$” at the end of each keyword so that all truncations of the keyword
would be searched as well, for example, “SSRI$.mp” will search for SSRI and also
“SSRIs”.
We then applied the Boolean operator “OR” to all terms applying to HHT, as well
to all terms for liver VMs. We then applied the Boolean operator “AND” to both
searches (liver VM and HHT) in order to obtain all articles that contain information on
liver VM and HHT.
The OVID search results utilizing MeSH and keywords for HHT and liver VM
that I utilized are listed below:
# Search History
Results
Display
1
exp Telangiectasia, Hereditary Hemorrhagic/
1700
DISPLAY
2
hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectas$.mp.
744
DISPLAY
3
weber-osler-rendu.mp.
3
DISPLAY
4
rendu-osler-weber.mp.
299
DISPLAY
5
osler-weber-rendu.mp.
175
DISPLAY
6
osler-weber.mp.
474
DISPLAY
7
weber-rendu.mp.
178
DISPLAY
8
osler-rendu.mp.
101
DISPLAY
9
rendu-osler.mp.
474
DISPLAY
10 weber-osler.mp.
13
DISPLAY
11 rendu-weber.mp.
66
DISPLAY
12 hereditary haemorrhagic teleangiectasia.mp.
13
DISPLAY
13 hereditary haemmorrhagic telangiectas$.mp.
0
-
14 hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia.mp.
206
DISPLAY
15 hht.mp.
721
DISPLAY
16 or/1-15
2301
DISPLAY
17 exp Arteriovenous Malformations/
18939
DISPLAY
18 arteriovenous malformation$.mp.
12482
DISPLAY
19 or/17-18
20128
DISPLAY
20 or/16,19
21719
DISPLAY
21 exp Liver/
310836
DISPLAY
22 exp Bile Ducts, Intrahepatic/
6267
DISPLAY
23 intrahepatic.mp.
18991
DISPLAY
24 hepatic.mp.
167917
DISPLAY
25 or/21-24
412831
DISPLAY
26 and/16,25
225
DISPLAY
27 limit 26 to (humans and english language)
173
DISPLAY
We then transferred these search results to a database manager, reference
manager. We utilized this reference tool to sort through the articles. When completing
evidence tables pertinent to diagnosis and treatment of liver VM, we excluded the
following types of articles:
1) articles that were not written in English
2) articles which had a sample size of N<5
3) articles which were a review of treatment or diagnosis methods solely and did not
contain raw data and results based on a sample of patients
4) articles which were a comment on treatment or diagnosis methods solely and did not
contain raw data and results based on a sample of patients
5) articles which were a letter regarding treatment or diagnosis methods solely and did
not contain raw data and results based on a sample of patients
6)articles which described treatment but did not describe outcomes
7)articles where the study patients were not sufficiently described or their was
insufficient information to associate outcomes with treatment(s)
Further, in order to include articles which met the above inclusion criteria within
the diagnosis evidence table, articles required the following information:
1) Results including sensitivity and specificity of diagnostic tests
2) OR, raw data which would allow for calculation of sensitivity and specificity of
diagnostic tests.