Subject control of the literature of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)

The AIDSLINE database from 1983 to 1989 uses around 20,000 bibliographic records referring to literature on acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) with over 190,000 occurrences of subject headings. An analysis shows that the majority of these subject headings were introduced between 1987 and 1989, replacing most of the headings originally introduced prior to 1983. These changes imply the instability and dynamism of the acquisition of knowledge in relatively new biomedical fields.