PV Wizard is a search tool for literature surveillance for Pharmacovigilance. Pharmacovigilance is defined as the science and activities concerned with detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse reactions to medicines. PV Wizard is an intuitive query builder that has a pre-coded search strategy developed with leading industry partners to simplify the pharmacovigilance search building process by structuring the framework into 5 key steps/elements: Drug name, Alternative drug names, Adverse drug reactions, Special conditions, and Human limit.
Using PV Wizard
1. Enter drug name by searching the Find best term in the Emtree box or filling in the query box. Drug name will be searched by default with pre-selected subheadings. Select more subheadings or de-select. Click “Next step” to proceed.
2. Add alternative drug names. Synonyms/variants will appear on the left-hand side of the page. All the synonyms will be added to the search query by default. Clicking on the radio button to exclude any synonym. Click “Add more alternative drug names” to manually add other synonyms. Click “Reset form” to delete the manually added synonyms. Use “Search in” box to change the search field if necessary. Click “Next step”.
3. Edit adverse drug reactions if needed. Search strategy for retrieving “adverse drug reactions” results are pre-coded. Edit the query directly in the text box. Click “Clear query” to define search query from the scratch. “Reset form” takes you back to the pre-coded query. Click “Next step”.
4. Add special situations. Search query for special situations are pre-coded. Edit the query directly in the text box when needed. Click “Next step”.
5. Adding/editing “Human limit” to complete the query. Click “Clear query” to define search query from the scratch, or leave this blank. Filter the search results by publication years and/or added date. Click lower middle button-Show results, to review the search results.
Adapted from Guide to using the new PV Wizard search form, for detail please check this guide by Elsevier.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has full medical literature monitoring (MLM) service. A total of 400 active substance groups (300 chemical active substance groups and 100 herbal active substance groups) are monitored by EMA.
Using EMA’s MLM searches
You need to sign in to check EMA’s MLM searches.
1. Click EMA’s MLM searches link to review the full list of search queries.
2. Click either substances groups
3. Select any substance you are interested in.
4. Select search query, then click on "Rerun" to see the result. Sometimes you may need to click "Result" tab on the top to see the result.
After you finish the five steps of PV Wizard search, there are actually two parts in your search results: 1. drug/subheading (Emtree terms) with human limits; 2. drug alternative names and adverse drug reaction with human limits or drug alternative names and special conditions with human limits. The results are labeled with lines in the figure.
Adapted from Embase for Pharmacovigilance by Elsevier.