Guide
Guides · Vancouver citation checker
Check Vancouver references in a biomedical paper
Vancouver style is a numbered medical reference list. The style can be followed exactly while the PMID, the page range, or the paper itself is wrong. Biomedical indexes are the right place to look, and they are not a substitute for reading the study.
Which databases are actually queried
Crossref and OpenAlex run for every line. For a biomedical reference, PubMed and Europe PMC are added. A PMID in the line is used when it is present. A DOI is compared with the title and authors, not trusted on its own. Semantic Scholar is part of the cross-check. This is not a search of the full text of every paper on PubMed.
Retraction and related notices are read from Retraction Watch data in Crossref, and from flags on PubMed and Europe PMC. In medicine that second source matters, because a retracted clinical paper may still be quoted by its PMID. The result links a notice when it has a DOI for one. Read the notice before you decide the citation is usable.
What Vancouver checking here does not include
RefCheck does not enforce ICMJE layout, superscript citation order, or journal-title abbreviations from the NLM catalog. It does not score plagiarism against a publisher’s similarity tool. It does not tell you that a trial was registered, that a sample size is what the paper says, or that the abstract you were shown matches the paper.
If the list was produced by a chat tool, the same cautions apply as on the ChatGPT references page: a complete Vancouver entry is cheap to imitate. Pair this page with the retracted paper checker when the question is specifically whether a known paper has a notice.
How to treat each verdict
Real: the record matches. Open the paper if you are citing a number or a clinical claim. Real with errors: fix the year, pages, or DOI from the corrected citation before submission. Likely fabricated: do not leave it in a medical manuscript. Unconfirmed: common for a report, a book chapter, or a non-English journal that these indexes do not hold. Search it by hand.
3 free reference checks without an account, plus 5 more free after you sign in. The general how-to covers the same verdicts outside medicine.
Typical cases
A PMID that belongs to another paper
The number is real and the title in your entry is not. Expect a mismatch, not a clean pass, and use the record that the PMID actually identifies.
A retracted trial still cited as evidence
The citation can be bibliographically perfect. The retraction flag is a separate line. Do not cite it as support until you have read the notice.
A guideline or a book chapter
These are often missing from PubMed. An unconfirmed verdict means you still need the publisher page or the ISBN, not that the chapter was invented.
How it works
Three steps for this kind of reference
01PasteOne reference per line, or a numbered list. Keep the authors, title, year, and the DOI or arXiv id if you have them.
02Cross-checkBiomedical lines are sent to PubMed and Europe PMC as well as Crossref and OpenAlex. Retraction flags are read from those sources.
03Read the verdictReal, real with errors, likely fabricated, or unconfirmed. A corrected citation is shown when the record disagrees, and a retraction is flagged when one is on record.
Frequently asked questions
Does this check Vancouver formatting?
No. It checks whether each numbered biomedical reference matches a database record, and whether a retraction is flagged. Abbreviation lists and citation-order rules are not graded.
Is PubMed queried for every reference?
PubMed and Europe PMC are added for biomedical references, not for every unrelated line. Crossref and OpenAlex still run first.
Can I paste a PMID alone?
A PMID is a strong identifier. Add the title and authors if you want a disagreement between your line and the record to be visible.
Is this a plagiarism or similarity check?
No. It does not compare your prose with published text. It checks the references.
What does a check cost?
3 free reference checks without an account, plus 5 more free after you sign in. Then each reference costs 1 AILatest credit. Failed lookups are refunded. Credits last 1 year and the expiry extends on every top-up. Packs are $1.99 for 200, $4.99 for 600, and $9.99 for 1,500. There is no subscription.
Cite only what's real.
3 free reference checks without an account, plus 5 more free after you sign in. Then 1 credit each.