August 2016 Transplant Trial Watch now available
The August 2016 edition of the Transplant Trial Watch is now available. This month’s edition includes systematic reviews of pre-emptive renal transplantation and management of ureteric strictures, along with trials of prostaglandin E1 in liver transplant recipients and C1 esterase inhibition in renal transplantation.
Read moreJuly 2016 Transplant Trial Watch now available
The July 2016 edition of the Transplant Trial Watch is now available. This month, trials include long-term outcomes from BENEFIT-EXT, treatment of asymptomatic bacteriuria in renal transplant recipients and and in depth analysis of the VICTOR trial.
Read moreJune 2016 Transplant Trial Watch is now online
The June 2016 Transplant Trial Watch is now available. This month, the trial watch includes systematic reviews of quality of life reporting in renal transplant trials and extended criteria donors, as well as an analysis of wound complications with everolimus following cardiac transplantation.
Read moreJanuary 2016 Transplant Trial Watch now available
The CET team would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! A new year means that this month’s Transplant Trial Watch is now out. New studies include a systematic review of outcomes in obese kidney transplant recipients, CNI and steroid-free immunosuppression in renal transplantation, and a direct mail campaign to improve donor registration.
Read moreJoin the discussion: recipient obesity and outcome after renal transplantation
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 […]
Read moreSirolimus associated with less malignancy but an increased mortality after kidney transplantation
A group from Ottawa, led by Greg Knoll, have published an important systematic review of risk of cancer in patients who had sirolimus included with their immunosuppression de novo as well as those who were converted at some stage after transplantation to sirolimus. The study also included a meta-analysis of individual patient data. This was […]
Read moreMeta-analysis in R: Part 2 – Binary data
In part 1, I discussed how to get set up for meta-analysis in R, by installing the necessary software and libraries. In this post, I will take the reader through the steps for performing meta-analysis of binary data in R.
Read moreMeta-analysis in R: Part 1 – Installing the software
When I am teaching about meta-analysis on the EVIT course, I often moan about the inflexibility of Cochrane’s Revman software and am asked what I use to perform my meta-analyses. My pechant for open-source software led me to use the R statistical environment. In this series of blog posts, that I will update over the […]
Read moreTransplant Trial Watch May 2014
The May 2014 edition of the transplant trial watch is now available on the CET site, as well as our mobile apps for iPhone, iPad and Android. This month, studies include a systematic review of hypothermic machine preservation in renal transplantation, metallic stents for biliary strictures following liver transplantation and tablet computer-based patient education.
Read moreOrigins of Evidence Based Medicine
There was an interesting editorial by Richard Smith and Drummond Rennie in the BMJ recently. The editorial is based on two interviews of pioneers in this field by Richard Smith, the former editor of the BMJ. In the first oral history he interviews Iain Chalmers, Muir Gray and David Sackett. They said that authors from a […]
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