biostudies-literatureUnknown108(4)Glanville J<h4>Objective</h4>The Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews contains search filters to find randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in Ovid MEDLINE: one maximizing sensitivity and another balancing sensitivity and precision. These filters were originally published in 1994 and were adapted and updated in 2008. To determine the performance of these filters, the authors tested them and thirty-six other MEDLINE filters against a large new gold standard set of relevant records.<h4>Methods</h4>We identified a gold standard set of RCT reports published in 2016 from the Cochrane CENTRAL database of controlled clinical trials. We retrieved the records in Ovid MEDLINE and combined these with each RCT filter. We calculated their sensitivity, relative precision, and f-scores.<h4>Results</h4>The gold staJournal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA556-563https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/studies/S-EPMC7524635biostudies-literatureWhich are the most sensitive search filters to identify randomized controlled trials in MEDLINE?PMC7524635Glanville JFeatherstone RKotas EDooley GfalseWhich are the most sensitive search filters to identify randomized controlled trials in MEDLINE?<h4>Objective</h4>The Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews contains search filters to find randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in Ovid MEDLINE: one maximizing sensitivity and another balancing sensitivity and precision. These filters were originally published in 1994 and were adapted and updated in 2008. To determine the performance of these filters, the authors tested them and thirty-six other MEDLINE filters against a large new gold standard set of relevant records.<h4>Methods</h4>We identified a gold standard set of RCT reports published in 2016 from the Cochrane CENTRAL database of controlled clinical trials. We retrieved the records in Ovid MEDLINE and combined these with each RCT filter. We calculated their sensitivity, relative precision, and f-scores.<h4>Results</h4>The gold sta2020-01-01T00:00:00Z2020 Oct2025-04-04T22:09:01.439Z2025-04-04T22:09:01.439ZS-EPMC75246353301321210.5195/jmla.2020.912