OBJECTIVES: Systematic literature reviews (SLRs) are a prerequisite for many Health Technology Assessments (HTAs), with MEDLINE^® and EMBASE^® often stipulated as standard data sources. We investigated whether expanding these data sources to include Asian specific databases would retrieve additional literature relevant to HTA assessments in this region. METHODS: To test this hypothesis, we conducted an SLR of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) assessing selected treatments in adults with hepatitis C virus. Searches were performed in globally recommended electronic databases for peer-review publications (MEDLINE^®, EMBASE^®) and HCV specific conferences by AASLD and EASL and additionally in Asian specific sources (including APASL Conference, KoreaMed, KMbase, J-STAGE and CNKI). Endpoint specific data can also be found in EMA and FDA documents, thus we searched equivalent organisations in Asia for these data. Relevant abstracts from country/regional specific sources were cross checked with data from standard databases to determine if additional, relevant studies were retrieved. RESULTS: Searching Asian data sources retrieved a large number of abstracts that were not identified through MEDLINE^® or EMBASE^®; from these, a small number of relevant abstracts were identified. For example, searches of APASL Conference uncovered trials across China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan which were not retrieved from traditional data sources. The majority of abstracts retrieved from Asian specific electronic databases did not meet our eligibility criteria. This is attributed to the search tools in these databases which were often rudimental and therefore many non-RCT abstracts were retrieved which would be filtered out using advanced search tools in MEDLINE^® and EMBASE^®