How to compare medical research papers side by side — and print the comparison

Reading one paper carefully is slow. Reading four papers against each other is where a review day really goes: flipping between PDFs to check which population each trial enrolled, what the primary endpoint actually was, and whether the effect sizes point the same way. Spreadsheets help, but someone still has to build them, and every transcription is a chance to mistype a confidence interval.

Symmathy's Compare feature does that mechanical work for you. You pick two or more papers you've already saved, and Symmathy lays out what each one states in a single side-by-side view — with page references so you can verify any cell against the source in seconds.

What the side-by-side view shows

• Synthesis — a short overview paragraph of what the group of papers is about and how they relate.
• Endpoints & effect sizes — one table, one column per paper. Each endpoint row carries the value each paper reported, the direction of the effect, and the page it appears on.
• Study notes — design, strengths, and weaknesses for each paper, as the authors stated them.
• Where they agree / Where they diverge — the overlap and the contradictions called out explicitly, instead of left for you to find by re-reading.
• Bottom line — a plain summary of what the papers collectively support, and what they don't.

What you won't find is a verdict. Symmathy does not grade evidence, rank studies, or tell you which paper is "better" — it reports what each one states and where it states it, and leaves the appraisal to you.

The PDF print-out and shared file

On screen the comparison is a set of cards. When you need it on paper — for a journal club, a supervisor meeting, or an appendix in your review — the PDF button downloads a document with the same organization: the synthesis in its own box, the endpoint table with one column per paper and page references intact, study notes for each paper, the agreements and divergences in their own sections, and the bottom line. Nothing is flattened into a wall of text.

The Share button attaches that same PDF to your device's share sheet, so on a phone or tablet you can hand it straight to email or a messaging app. On desktop, a Copy button gives you the whole comparison as formatted text you can paste into notes or a manuscript draft.

The PDF is generated in your browser — your papers aren't uploaded anywhere to produce it — and every export carries a note that the output is for research use and not medical advice.

Comparing papers across languages

A comparison is only useful if it can include the studies written in Japanese, Thai, Spanish, or Portuguese — often exactly the regional trials an English-only review misses. Compare reads each paper natively in its source language and writes the side-by-side breakdown in your chosen output language, keeping the original titles verbatim so every row stays citable. Combined with federated search across twelve databases, this is how a comparison ends up covering the world's literature rather than only its English slice.

Fitting it into a review workflow

1. Run your question as a federated search and save the candidates to your library.
2. Send two or more saved papers to Compare — your library stays untouched.
3. Read the endpoint table and the agree/diverge sections; verify cells via the page references.
4. Download the PDF for your records, or share it with your team.
5. Need a deeper look at one paper first? Scan the PDF into a structured summary, then compare from there.

Questions people ask