Have you ever wondered why surgical specialties lag behind their medical counterparts in Evidence-Based medicine? Or what the specific challenges are for EBM in surgical specialties? This review, written by CET co-director Simon Knight and published in European Surgical Research this month, looks at the value of systematic reviews in surgery and some of the […]
Two recent systematic reviews were published on this important topic. The review by Lafranca and colleagues entitled “Body mass index and outcome in renal transplant recipients: a systematic review and meta-analysis”(BMC Medicine 2015;13(1):111) included 56 studies. The authors concluded that “Several of the pooled outcome measurements show significant benefits for ‘low’ BMI (30 preferably should […]
I was very amused (and slightly horrified) by the Cochrane Hepato-Biliary group’s most recent offering regarding surgical resection versus liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma. The 22-page review details elegantly the background to the review, gives an in depth search strategy and description of excluded studies and then concludes: “There are no randomised clinical trials comparing […]
A group from Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China has recently published a systematic review comparing the outcomes in patients receiving kidneys from donation after cardiac death (DCD). Deng et al conducted a meta-analysis using the results from four randomised controlled trials (351 kidneys). Machine perfusion reduced the rate of delayed graft function compared to static […]
Re: Alemtuzumab induction in renal transplantation: A meta-analysis and systemic review. Zhang X, Huang H, Han S, Fu S, Wang L. Transpl Immunol. 2012 Oct;27(2-3):63-8 A recent systematic review and meta-analysis has been published in Transplant Immunology. The review by Zhang et al assesses the evidence for the use of Alemtuzumab as induction therapy in renal transplantation. […]
Philip Macklin was awarded an MSc in Surgical Sciences jointly from the University of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Surgeons in June of this year, with distinction. Working under the supervision of the CET, his dissertation was entitled “A Systematic Review of the Use of Rituximab in Renal Transplantation”. He is now preparing manuscripts […]
We have recently completed a systematic review of preservation solutions for the static cold storage of kidney allografts (this was presented at the recent ESOT meeting and has been accepted for publication subject to satisfactory revision). We used MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library and the Transplant Library to perform the literature search. Searches combined MeSH […]