title: Find duplicates among the PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library Databases in systematic review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Finding duplicates is an important phase of systematic review. However, no consensus regarding the methods to find duplicates has been provided. This study aims to describe a pragmatic strategy of combining auto- and hand-searching duplicates in systematic review and to evaluate the prevalence and characteristics of duplicates.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Literatures regarding portal vein thrombosis (PVT) and Budd-Chiari syndrome (BCS) were searched by the PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane library databases. Duplicates included one index paper and one or more redundant papers. They were divided into type-I (duplicates among different databases) and type-II (duplicate publications in different journals/issues) duplicates. For type-I duplicates, reference items were further compared between index and redundant papers. Of 10936 papers regarding PVT, 2399 and 1307 were identified as auto- and hand-searched duplicates, respectively. The prevalence of auto- and hand-searched redundant papers was 11.0% (1201/10936) and 6.1% (665/10936), respectively. They included 3431 type-I and 275 type-II duplicates. Of 11403 papers regarding BCS, 3275 and 2064 were identified as auto- and hand-searched duplicates, respectively. The prevalence of auto- and hand-searched redundant papers was 14.4% (1640/11403) and 9.1% (1039/11403), respectively. They included 5053 type-I and 286 type-II duplicates. Most of type-I duplicates were identified by auto-searching method (69.5%, 2385/3431 in PVT literatures; 64.6%, 3263/5053 in BCS literatures). Nearly all type-II duplicates were identified by hand-searching method (94.9%, 261/275 in PVT literatures; 95.8%, 274/286 in BCS literatures). Compared with those identified by auto-searching method, type-I duplicates identified by hand-searching method had a significantly higher prevalence of wrong items (47/2385 versus 498/1046, p<0.0001 in PVT literatures; 30/3263 versus 778/1790, p<0.0001 in BCS literatures). Most of wrong items originated from EMBASE database.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Given the inadequacy of a single strategy of auto-searching method, a combined strategy of auto- and hand-searching methods should be employed to find duplicates in systematic review.
authors: Xijing Hospital of Digestive Diseases, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, China ; Department of Gastroenterology, No. 463 Hospital of Chinese PLA, Shenyang, China.
authors: Xingshun
authors: X
authors: Qi
authors: Man
authors: M
authors: Yang
authors: Weirong
authors: W
authors: Ren
authors: Jia
authors: J
authors: Jia
authors: Juan
authors: J
authors: Wang
authors: Guohong
authors: G
authors: Han
authors: Daiming
authors: D
authors: Fan
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D006502:Budd-Chiari Syndrome / Q000628:therapy; D015713:Duplicate Publications as Topic; D011169:Portal Vein / Q000473:pathology; D039781:PubMed / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013927:Thrombosis / Q000628:therapy; D000078202:Systematic Reviews as Topic
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