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Searching the PubMed ID Field

The PubMed ID is a unique identifier assigned to each MEDLINE record. For example, 14847410 finds the record with PubMed ID 14847410.

The search 148474* finds MEDLINE records with a PubMed ID starting with 148474.

Use the OR operator to search for multiple PubMed IDs. For example, 14847410 OR 23455055 finds records that contain the PubMed ID 14847410 or the PubMed ID 23455055. You cannot combine multiple PubMed IDs using the operator AND, NOT, NEAR or  SAME.

You may also search the Identifying Codes field by PubMed ID. See Searching the Identifying Codes Field.

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Searching by PubMed ID in Other Databases

You can search by PubMed ID in Web of Science, Current Contents Connect, Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, BIOSIS Citation Index, and Zoological Record. The advantage of searching another database by PubMed ID is that you can find information not available in MEDLINE records. For example, Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, BIOSIS Citation Index, and Zoological Record supply valuable classification data such as taxonomic terms. Records in Web of Science and Current Contents Connect supply the addresses of all authors of an article.

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PubMed ID and NLM Unique ID

The difference between the PubMed ID and the NLM Unique ID is that the PubMed ID is a unique identifier for the record. The NLM Unique ID is a unique identifier for the source journal. Searching by NLM Unique ID is like searching by ISSN.