lilacs search strategy for systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy studies

Background: There are few publications on search strategies to identify diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) studies in lilacs.

Objective: To translate and customise medline search strategies for use in lilacs and assess their retrieval of studies in Cochrane DTA systematic reviews.

Method: We developed a six-step process to translate and customise medline search strategies for use in lilacs (iAHx interface). We identified medline search strategies of published Cochrane DTA reviews, translated/customised them for use in lilacs, ran searches in lilacs and compared the retrieval results of our translated search strategy versus the one used in the published reviews.

Results: Our lilacs search strategies translated/customised from the medline strategies retrieved studies in 70 Cochrane DTA reviews. Only 29 of these reviews stated that they had searched the lilacs database and 21 published their lilacs search strategies. Few had used the lilacs database search tools, none exploded the subject headings, and 86% used only English terms.

Conclusion: Translating and tailoring a medline search strategy for the lilacs database resulted in the retrieval of DTA studies that would have been missed otherwise.