MEDLINE

MEDLINE is a premier bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical information produced by the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM). It forms the core component of PubMed, the widely used free search interface for biomedical literature.

MEDLINE records provide bibliographic details, including authors, journal, publication date, and abstracts when available. Each record is indexed with MeSH, a controlled vocabulary that standardizes terminology to improve search precision and consistency across topics.

Content spans clinical medicine, public health, pharmacology, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and basic sciences, drawing from thousands of journals published worldwide. Most records include an abstract, and many links to full text are provided through publishers or freely accessible sources such as PubMed Central.

Access and use: MEDLINE data are accessible primarily through PubMed and other platforms. Users can search by keywords, MeSH terms, authors, and other fields to support literature reviews, clinical decision making, and evidence-based practice.

History and updates: MEDLINE began in the 1960s as a core project of the NLM and has evolved into the central database of biomedical literature. The database is updated daily with newly indexed records and ongoing improvements in indexing and coverage.

See also: PubMed, PubMed Central, MeSH, National Library of Medicine. MEDLINE is widely used by researchers, clinicians, and students worldwide to locate, review, and synthesize biomedical information.