ACTA FAC MED NAISS 2008; 25 (3): 145-149

Original article

EVIDENCE-BASED CLINICAL PRACTICE AND THE COCHRANE HEPATO-BILIARY GROUP

Christian Gluud
Dimitrinka Nikolova
 

The Cochrane Hepato-Biliary
Group, Copenhagen Trial Unit,
Centre for Clinical Intervention
Research, Rigshospitalet,
Copenhagen University Hospital,
Copenhagen, Denmark

SUMMARY

The article gives an overview of the structure, aims, products, and achievements of The Cochrane Hepato-Biliary Group (CHBG) in its 12th-year of existence. The article informs about the process of systematic review preparation, the central role of randomised clinical trials for making evidence-based decisions on benefits and harms of interventions, and discusses factors that may lead to biased evaluation of the studied interventions. Systematic reviews are mostly based on meta-analyses of randomised clinical trials. The importance of methodological evaluation of trial reports using a number of components that may detect systematic errors ('bias') is discussed. 'Trials sequential analysis' as a way to control risk of random errors ('play of chance') due to repetitive testing on accumulating data in cumulative meta-analyses is introduced. The CHBG reviews are published in The Cochrane Library as well as in paper journals. The practice to look for or conduct a systematic review be-fore planning a clinical trial or write a clinical guideline should become routine.
 

Key words: Cochrane Hepato-Biliary Group, systematic review, randomised clinical trial