I'm currently conducting a literature review into anatomical variations of the portal vein. I'm using OVID and just wanted to check whether this is an efficient search strategy.
This is the Search Strategy:
- Portal Vein*.mp.
- Portal System*.mp.
- 1 OR 2
- Anatom*.mp.
- variat* .mp
- variant* .mp
- 5 OR 6
- 3 AND 4 AND 7
To break it down: I used 1 and 2 as a way to capture any mention of the Portal Vein (or more general mentions of the Portal System) Then 4+5+6 are to capture any way that an anatomical variant could be mentioned, and 7 and 8 summate this. (mp = mentioned anywhere)
Is this an efficient search strategy? I fear that I may accidentally be missing relevant articles using the search strategy, although the number of articles that has been turned up is quite high. Are there any unnecessary clauses?
