GET esearch.fcgi

nih.gov:pubmed-central-api

Summary: Search PubMed Central database
Operation ID: eSearch
Auth: unknown
Description

Searches the specified database and returns a list of unique identifiers (UIDs) matching the query.

Parameters (16)

WebEnv (string, query, optional)

Web environment string from previous search

datetype (string, query, optional)

Type of date used with reldate

Constraints: {'enum': ['edat', 'mdat', 'pdat']}

db (string, query, required)

Database to search (use 'pmc' for PubMed Central)

Constraints: {'enum': ['pmc', 'pubmed', 'pmcbooks']}

email (string, query, optional)

Email address for contact

field (string, query, optional)

Specific field to search (e.g., title, author, abstract)

maxdate (string, query, optional)

Maximum date (YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY/MM or YYYY)

mindate (string, query, optional)

Minimum date (YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY/MM or YYYY)

query_key (string, query, optional)

Query key from previous search

reldate (integer, query, optional)

Return results within last n days

Constraints: {'minimum': 1}

retmax (integer, query, optional, default: 20)

Maximum number of results to return

Constraints: {'minimum': 1, 'maximum': 10000}

retmode (string, query, optional, default: xml)

Return mode

Constraints: {'enum': ['xml', 'json', 'txt', 'html']}

retstart (integer, query, optional, default: 0)

Index of first result to return (0-based)

Constraints: {'minimum': 0}

sort (string, query, optional)

Sort order for results

Constraints: {'enum': ['date', 'relevance', 'author', 'title']}

term (string, query, required)

Search query string

tool (string, query, optional)

Tool name for logging

usehistory (string, query, optional, default: n)

Store results on history server for later retrieval

Constraints: {'enum': ['y', 'n']}

Examples (3)

TitleTypeURLAction
Basic search for cancer research articles curl https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/esearch.fcgi?db=pmc&term=cancer&retmax=10&retmode=json
Search by author with date range filter curl https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/esearch.fcgi?db=pmc&term=smith&field=author&mindate=2020/01/01&maxdate=2024/12/31&retmax=20&retmode=json
Recent articles with pagination and history curl https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/esearch.fcgi?db=pmc&term=CRISPR&reldate=365&retmax=50&retstart=0&usehistory=y&retmode=json&sort=date

Probe History

Latency

Status Codes

TimeStatusLatencySize
2026-03-23 10:43:11.587337 404 501ms
2026-03-23 10:22:02.226365 404 513ms
2026-03-23 10:18:22.342148 404 506ms

Response Changes

WhenOldNew
2026-03-23 10:22:02.226365 346077724e10 f678c032a5ce
2026-03-23 10:43:11.587337 f678c032a5ce 6e6785b0708b