Cochrane News

Collection of Cochrane evidence on diagnosing tuberculosis

5 years 9 months ago

The Union Conference, a world conference on lung health, is taking place 8-11 November 2022. To mark this, Cochrane Infectious Diseases have released an updated collection on diagnosing tuberculosis, which highlights Cochrane Reviews relevant to this topic. 

Tuberculosis continues to cause great suffering worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2021 an estimated 10.6 million people developed tuberculosis, an increase of 4.5% from 2020. 

This collection includes selected systematic reviews from Cochrane Infectious Diseases and other international teams that underpin three WHO consolidated guidelines on systematic screening for tuberculosis disease and on rapid diagnostics for detection of tuberculosis and tuberculosis drug resistance.  The collection highlights how Cochrane evidence contributes within a wider landscape of tuberculosis evidence and guidelines. 

 

Lead image credit: The Global Fund/Jonas Gratzer

Monday, November 7, 2022
Muriah Umoquit

VIDEO: What are systematic reviews?

5 years 11 months ago

A systematic review attempts to identify, appraise and synthesize all the empirical evidence that meets pre-specified eligibility criteria to answer a specific research question. Researchers conducting systematic reviews use explicit, systematic methods that are selected with a view aimed at minimizing bias, to produce more reliable findings to inform decision making. 

Here is a video from Cochrane Consumers and Communication that explains what a systematic review is clearly and simply for people who may not be familiar with the concepts and terminology of systematic reviews: what they are, how researchers prepare them, and why they’re an important part of making informed decisions about health - for everyone. 

Cochrane evidence provides a powerful tool to enhance your healthcare knowledge and decision making. This video from Cochrane Sweden explains a bit about how we create health evidence, including systematic reviews, and other activities of Cochrane. 

Thursday, January 13, 2022
Anonymous

Cochrane evidence in different languages

6 years 9 months ago

Only about 6% of the world’s population are native English speakers, and 75% of people don’t speak English at all.

Many people do not have access to high-quality health information, because it is not available in a language that they understand. We translate Cochrane evidence to make it more accessible, and to reduce the linguistic barrier to global evidence-informed health decisions.

Cochrane groups in different parts of the world lead our knowledge translation activities in different languages. They translate Cochrane Reviews and related content, such as podcasts or blogshots. They also produce and share information in their language, do social media, work with professional societies, policy makers, patient groups or the media in their country, and offer training.

We have published more than 49,000 translations of Cochrane health evidence summaries across 20 languages as of January 2024.

Read Cochrane evidence on cochrane.org in different languages. You can see all available languages on the top of each page on cochrane.org, and click on it to switch the language. Or click here:

Most translated Cochrane Reviews:

Cochrane podcasts in different languages: Cochrane podcasts are a short audio summary of a Cochrane review and have been recorded in 40+ languages.

Monday, February 12, 2024
Muriah Umoquit

What is Cochrane?

7 years 1 month ago

Cochrane exists so that healthcare decisions get better.

Cochrane is a global independent network of researchers, professionals, patients, carers, and people interested in health. Many of our contributors are world leaders in their fields - medicine, health policy, research methodology, or consumer advocacy - and our groups are situated in some of the world's most respected academic and medical institutions.

Cochrane  contributors work together to produce credible, accessible health information that is free from commercial sponsorship and other conflicts of interest. This is vital for us to generate authoritative and reliable information, working freely, unconstrained by commercial and financial interests. We gather and analyze the  best available evidence to help people make informed decisions about health and health care. These are called systematic reviews. Our work is recognized as representing an international gold standard for high quality, trusted information.


The need for Cochrane's work is even greater than it was when we started in 1993. As access to health evidence increases, so do the risks of misinterpreting complex content; meanwhile the likelihood of any one person getting a complete and balanced picture decreases. Our mission to provide accessible, credible information to support informed decision-making has never been more important or useful for improving global health.

Friday, October 7, 2022
Muriah Umoquit

Cochrane Podcasts: Listen to Cochrane evidence in under 5 minutes

7 years 10 months ago

Keeping up with the latest in health evidence made easy!

For over 30 years, Cochrane has been at the forefront of producing healthcare evidence synthesises. We collaborate with experts worldwide to provide authoritative, relevant, and reliable evidence.

In just under 5 minutes, our podcast episodes feature Cochrane review authors simplifying complex findings into plain language. Whether you're a healthcare professional or a patient, you can easily grasp the latest Cochrane evidence and gain the confidence to make informed decisions.

Explore our extensive podcast library and stay updated by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. Your source for Cochrane evidence that's easily understood is just a click away.

Tuesday, November 7, 2023
Muriah Umoquit

Clinical Trials Day 2024

8 years 6 months ago

Clinical Trials Day is celebrated on 20 May marking the day in 1747 on which James Lind is believed to have begun the first known controlled trial, comparing different treatments for scurvy which was common among sailors in the British Royal Navy. Watch a video explaining the trial to see history in the making.

Learn about Cochrane systematic reviews and how clinical trials are used:


Continuing to fight for greater clinical trial transparency 

Registering and reporting the results of clinical trials is an ethical, and often legal, responsibility. However, it is well documented that the results of many studies are never published. This contributes to research waste and can even lead to people being harmed.   

Continuing with Cochrane’s long-term advocacy and campaigning around improved clinical trial transparency, we have been involved in major milestones in this area. Here are some of the highlights from the past 12 months: 

Supporting global policy 
Cochrane has continued to support WHO with the implementation of resolution WHA75.8 on strengthening clinical trials globally. This includes through responding to and disseminating a public consultation on clinical trials best practice and inviting WHO colleagues to present about the resolution in a session at the Cochrane Colloquium in London. Cochrane’s Editor in Chief, Dr Karla Soares-Weiser, is also contributing to the technical advisory group established to support the resolution in a personal capacity. 

Cochrane Denmark, Norway and Sweden advocating to end research waste in Nordic countries
Cochrane Denmark, Cochrane Norway, and Cochrane Sweden, along with AllTrials campaign, the Dam Foundation, Melanomföreningen, and TranspariMED, jointly published a report that found that 475 academically led clinical trials involving 83,903 patients completed during 2016-19 in Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden have never made their results public in any form. This gained widespread media coverage, including calls from the Norwegian State Secretary for the Ministry of Health to action the findings from the report.  

Following the publication of the report, Cochrane groups in Nordic countries have continued to keep attention on the topic by engaging with universities and sending questionnaires to researchers connected to the reported missing trials to investigate why clinical trial data hasn’t been published. To support institutions in reporting in clinical trials, Cochrane Norway and the Dam Foundation also held a webinar aimed at addressing some of the challenged and issues around clinical trial reporting.  

Supporting clinical trial transparency in the EU 
Representatives of Cochrane, Cochrane France and Cochrane Germany met with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to discuss how to support the EMA’s Clinical Trials Information System (CTIS) in its transparency objectives in order to benefit health research. The CTIS contains details on clinical trials currently underway and results summaries for completed trials. This is a valuable resource for researchers to identify studies which might not otherwise be accessible for evidence synthesis.  

Cochrane Germany push for German university hospitals to publish all clinical trial data
Most recently, Cochrane Germany, alongside the German Network for Evidence-Based Medicine, HTA.de and the BIH Quest Center, published a policy position paper that highlighted that one third of all clinical trials led by German university hospitals between 2014-2017 remained unpublished for five years after completion. They called on the Federal Ministry of Health and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research to create appropriate framework conditions for complete study registration and timely publication of results in Germany and to propose a regulation. 

Cochrane’s systematic reviews rely upon the results of clinical trials. To assess the effectiveness and safety of healthcare interventions, we need to know what trials were done, how they were conducted and what their findings were. Without access to detailed information from all clinical trials, we cannot have a full picture of the evidence. 

 

“Cochrane is pleased to be at the forefront of some significant improvements in clinical trial transparency. However, we must ensure that this momentum continues as there is much more to be done globally. We will continue advocating for clinical trial transparency and will fight for this key ethical and legal responsibility to be met.” says Catherine Spencer, Cochrane Chief Executive Officer. Cochrane's clinical trial transparency advocacy:  Cochrane Library systematic reviews of interest:  Cochrane training resources of interest: 

 

Friday, May 17, 2024
Muriah Umoquit
Checked
21 hours 28 minutes ago
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