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Showing posts with label Cochrane Collaboration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cochrane Collaboration. Show all posts

Friday, March 16, 2012

Colloquium registration, abstract and workshop submission now open - conference Sept 30-Oct 3 Auckland, New Zealand



Colloquium registration, abstract and workshop submission now open:

Registration for the 20th Cochrane Colloquium is now open, and submissions for abstracts and workshops are being accepted. This year's Colloquium will be held in Auckland, New Zealand, 30 September to 3 October 2012.

Important upcoming deadlines to note:
Abstract and workshop submission: Thursday, 19 April
Early registration: Thursday, 12 July

Please check the main Colloquium website regularly for updates and general information.
External link for more information: 
Contributor's Information
Contributor's name: 
Cochrane Web Team
Email address: 
web@cochrane.org

Monday, March 05, 2012

Understanding Evidence-based Healthcare: A Foundation for Action | US Cochrane Center - 6 modules



Course Description:
In these six modules, we will illustrate key concepts with compelling real-world examples, covering the following topics and issues. Run times do not take into account interruptions or a second review of selected slides.
  • Module 1. INTRO: What is evidence-based healthcare and why is it important? (45 minutes)
  • Module 2. ASK: The importance of research questions in evidence based healthcare. (40 minutes)
  • Module 3. ALIGN: Research design, bias and levels of evidence. (1 hour)
  • Module 4. ACQUIRE: Searching for healthcare information. Assessing harms and benefits. (1 hour 10 minutes)
  • Module 5. APPRAISE: Behind the numbers: Understanding healthcare statistics. Science, speed and the search for best evidence. (1 hour 20 minutes)
  • Module 6: APPLY: Critical appraisal and making better decisions for evidence-based healthcare, Determining causality. (1 hour)

Monday, January 24, 2011

Cochrane Collaboration awarded seat on World Health Assembly




(Geneva, Switzerland – January 24, 2011) On
January 24, 2011, the
World Health Organization (WHO) awarded
The Cochrane Collaboration a seat on the World Health Assembly allowing the Collaboration to provide input on WHO health resolutions.

The Cochrane Collaboration was accepted as a Non-Governmental Organization in Official Relations
with the WHO at the WHO’s Executive Board meeting, establishing a partnership with formalized communication
between the two organizations.

You can read more in the official press release announcing this story on www.cochrane.org. It is available in Arabic, Standard Chinese, German, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

EvidenceUpdates- Cochrane Collaboration review: Maintenance chemotherapy for ovarian cancer.



Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2010 Sep 8;9:CD007414.

Plain language summary

Maintenance chemotherapy for ovarian cancer
Of all the gynaecological cancers, ovarian cancer has the highest death rate and epithelial ovarian cancer accounts for about 90% of all cases. Surgery and six courses of platinum-based chemotherapy is the standard treatment and 75% of the women may not have any evidence of disease at the end of this treatment. However, 75% of the women who respond to initial treatment will relapse within 18 to 28 months and only 20% to 40% of all women will survive beyond five years.

Some doctors suggest giving maintenance chemotherapy for epithelial ovarian cancer. Maintenance chemotherapy refers to the chemotherapy given to women who have achieved remission after initial surgery and induction chemotherapy.The aim of maintenance chemotherapy is to prolong the duration of remission and improve the overall length of survival. Some studies indicate that maintenance chemotherapy can improve the time without cancer progression, while others do not show any effect. The aim of this review was to establish whether using maintenance chemotherapy is better than observation alone for women with epithelial ovarian cancer. We identified six trials which used different types of chemotherapy (e.g. platinum agents, doxorubicin or topotecan) but there was not sufficient evidence to prove any of the drugs were better than observation alone.

An important consideration for women with advanced disease is the balance between the benefit of treatment and the harms or adverse effects that these treatments may cause. There were insufficient data to comment on the overall impact of the maintenance chemotherapy on clinical benefit from the women's perspective.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Epithelial ovarian cancer accounts for about 90% of all cases of ovarian cancer. Debulking surgery and six courses of platinum-based chemotherapy results in complete clinical remission (CCR) in up to 75% of cases. However, 75% of the responders will relapse within a median time of 18 to 28 months and only 20% to 40% of women will survive beyond five years. It has been suggested that maintenance chemotherapy could assist in prolonging remission. To date, there has not been a systematic review on the impact of maintenance chemotherapy for epithelial ovarian cancer.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Study finds non-hormonal therapies can relieve hot flashes in women with breast cancer



Note:
per the media headline, this was not actually a 'study' but a Cochrane Collaboration review of pertinent studies, the Cochrane Collaboration does not perform studies but conducts reviews

Saturday, July 31, 2010

EvidenceUpdates: Cochrane Collaboration review: Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults including professional commentaries and warning



CONCLUSIONS: Influenza vaccines have a modest effect in reducing influenza symptoms and working days lost. There is no evidence that they affect complications, such as pneumonia, or transmission.

WARNING: This review includes 15 out of 36 trials funded by industry (four had no funding declaration). An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favorable to the vaccines. The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in light of this finding.

Also: link to the Cochrane Collaboration review (The Cochrane Library):

Background
Different types of influenza vaccines are currently produced worldwide. Healthy adults are presently targeted mainly in North America.

Objectives
Identify, retrieve and assess all studies evaluating the effects of vaccines against influenza in healthy adults

Authors' conclusions

Influenza vaccines have a modest effect in reducing influenza symptoms and working days lost. There is no evidence that they affect complications, such as pneumonia, or transmission.

WARNING:
This review includes 15 out of 36 trials funded by industry (four had no funding declaration). An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favorable to the vaccines. The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in light of this finding.





Plain language summary

Vaccines to prevent influenza in healthy adults
Over 200 viruses cause influenza and influenza-like illness which produce the same symptoms (fever, headache, aches and pains, cough and runny noses). Without laboratory tests, doctors cannot tell the two illnesses apart. Both last for days and rarely lead to death or serious illness. At best, vaccines might be effective against only influenza A and B, which represent about 10% of all circulating viruses. Each year, the World Health Organization recommends which viral strains should be included in vaccinations for the forthcoming season.

Authors of this review assessed all trials that compared vaccinated people with unvaccinated people. The combined results of these trials showed that under ideal conditions (vaccine completely matching circulating viral configuration) 33 healthy adults need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms. In average conditions (partially matching vaccine) 100 people need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms. Vaccine use did not affect the number of people hospitalised or working days lost but caused one case of Guillian-Barré syndrome (a major neurological condition leading to paralysis) for every one million vaccinations. Fifteen of the 36 trials were funded by vaccine companies and four had no funding declaration. Our results may be an optimistic estimate because company-sponsored influenza vaccines trials tend to produce results favorable to their products and some of the evidence comes from trials carried out in ideal viral circulation and matching conditions and because the harms evidence base is limited.

Cochrane Collaboration review: Elastic compression stockings for prevention of deep vein thrombosis



Background
One of the settings where deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in the lower limb and pelvic veins occurs is in hospital with prolonged immobilisation of patients for various surgical and medical illnesses. Using graduated compression stockings (GCS) in these patients has been proposed to decrease the risk of DVT.

Objectives
To determine the magnitude of effectiveness of GCS in preventing DVT in various groups of hospitalised patients.

Authors' conclusions
GCS are effective in diminishing the risk of DVT in hospitalised patients. Data examination also suggests that GCS on a background of another method of prophylaxis is more effective than GCS on its own.

Plain language summary

Elastic compression stockings for prevention of deep vein thrombosis during a hospital stay
Hospital patients can develop deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in the legs and pelvic veins immediately after surgery or if they are not mobile because of a medical illness. Symptoms vary from none to pain and swelling in the legs. A blood clot can move from the leg to the lungs with the danger of pulmonary embolism and death. Usually the DVT clears up or has long term effects such as high venous pressure in the leg, leg pain, swelling, darkening of the skin or inflammation.

DVT can be prevented using compression or drugs but drugs may cause bleeding, which is a particular concern in surgical patients. Graduated elastic compression stockings help prevent blood clots forming in the legs by applying varying amounts of pressure to different parts of the leg. Our review confirmed that graduated compression stockings reduce the risk of DVT in hospitalised patients. Our findings also suggest that wearing elastic stockings as well as receiving another method of prophylaxis has increased benefit. We identified 18 randomised controlled trials, eight comparing wearing stockings to no stockings and 10 comparing stockings plus another method with that method alone in patients undergoing surgery. The other methods used were Dextran 70, aspirin, heparin and mechanical sequential compression.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

abstract: Presenting the Results of Cochrane Systematic Reviews to a Consumer Audience: A Qualitative Study



Results. Participants preferred results presented as words, supplemented by numbers in a table. There was a lack of understanding regarding the difference between a review and an individual study, that the effect is rarely an exact number, that evidence can be of low or high quality, and that level of quality is a separate issue from intervention effect.
 Conclusion. Through testing and iteration the authors identified and addressed several problems, using explanations, rephrasing, and symbols to present scientific concepts. Other problems remain, including how best to present confidence intervals and continuous outcomes. Future research should also test information elements in combination rather than in isolation. The new Plain Language Summary format is being evaluated in a randomized controlled trial.

abstract: Cochrane Collaboration review: DNA-repair pathway inhibitors for the treatment of ovarian cancer (PARP inhibitors)



"Our objective was to compare effectiveness and side effects of PARP inhibitors compared to conventional chemotherapy in women with ovarian cancer. The identification of a safe dose of AZD2281 (a PARP inhibitor) has been found by small non randomised trials, with encouraging results. For ovarian cancer, there are currently two ongoing RCTs, but outcome data are not yet available. Results of these trials are awaited to determine if DNA repair inhibitors have a role in addition to conventional chemotherapy in the treatment of ovarian cancer."

Main results
The search strategy identified 473 unique references of which 461 were excluded on the basis of title and abstract. The remaining 12 articles were retrieved in full, but none satisfied the inclusion criteria. However, two ongoing randomised phase II clinical trials were identified from the clinical trials databases that met our inclusion criteria, but no preliminary data were available.


Authors' conclusions


There are to date no published RCT data on the effectiveness and side effects of DNA-repair pathways inhibitors used alone or in association with conventional chemotherapy in the treatment of ovarian cancer. On-going trials have been identified and results are awaited and will be included in future updates of this review.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Cochrane Reviews - by sub-topics 'Gynaecological Cancer'



CANCER OF THE OVARY (25) (reviews in process/completed)

Prevention (0)
Screening (0)
Initial management and follow-up (12)
Immunotherapy (0)
Surgery (2)
Laparoscopy versus laparotomy for FIGO Stage I ovarian cancer
Ultraradical surgery for the primary debulking of epithelial ovarian cancer (protocol stage)
Radiotherapy (1)
Chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy after surgery for ovarian carcinosarcoma (protocol stage)
Chemotherapy (5)
Adjuvant (post-surgery) chemotherapy for early stage epithelial ovarian cancer
Chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy after surgery for ovarian carcinosarcoma (protocol stage)
Intraperitoneal chemotherapy for the initial management of primary epithelial ovarian cancer
Maintenance chemotherapy for ovarian cancer (protocol stage)
Topotecan for ovarian cancer
Hormonal therapy (1)
Antigen-specific active immunotherapy for ovarian cancer
Combined modality therapy (2)
Effectiveness of different treatment modalities for the management of adult onset granulosa cell tumours of the ovary (primary and recurrent) (protocol stage)
Interventions for the treatment of borderline ovarian tumours (protocol stage)
Follow-up (1)
Evaluation of follow-up strategies for patients with epithelial ovarian cancer following completion of primary treatment (protocol stage)
Management of advanced disease (13)