Article Date
June 4, 2024
You might be familiar with the use of an asterisk (also called a “Wildcard”) for truncation (searching for alternate word endings) when conducting a literature search. The National Library of Medicine’s most recent Technical Bulletin explains the expanded use of the asterisk in PubMed searches.
Previously, a wildcard could only be used for truncation at the end of a term or phrase to search for alternate endings. Now, wildcards can be used in the middle of a term or phrase, and multiple wildcards can be used in the same term or phrase.
To read the PubMed Update, which includes examples of using a wildcard, click here.