Cochrane Library Podcasts

Several Cochrane Reviews evaluate treatments for sickle cell disease, which can cause a huge burden for patients and their families. The review on the effects of hydroxyurea was updated in September 2022 by Angela Rankine-Mullings from the Sickle Cell Unit, Caribbean Institute for Health Research at The University of the West Indies in Jamaica and Sarah Nevitt, from the Department of Health Data Science, University of Liverpool in UK. We asked Angela to outline the need for the review and its latest findings in this podcast.

Identifying ways to help people be physically active should help improve their health and well-being, and prevent premature deaths. There are several relevant Cochrane reviews and one published in September 2021 looks at school-based programs. Here's the review's first author, Sarah Neil-Sztramko, from McMaster University in Canada to tell us about the importance of the review and its findings.

Hundreds of Cochrane reviews have been published over the last 25 years relevant to the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of cancers, including ovarian cancer. In a new review from July 2022, Clare Davenport, from the University of Birmingham in the UK, and colleagues examined the evidence on the use of multiple tests to detect it and she tells us what they found in this podcast.

Some new-born babies suffer from jaundice and there are several Cochrane reviews of possible ways to treat it, including the use of phototherapy. These reviews were added to in March 2022 with a new review of the effects of changing the baby’s position under the phototherapy. Lead author, Anu Thukral from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences tells us about the findings in this podcast.

The Cochrane Common Mental Disorders Group has published more than 200 reviews and, in May 2022, they added a new review of community‐based interventions for improving the mental health of refugee children and adolescents in high‐income countries. One of the authors, Noortje Uphoff who works with the Group at the University of York in the UK, tells us more in this podcast.

Cochrane has produced several systematic reviews of interventions that might help people suffering from anaemia. In this podcast, Claire Iannizzi talks with lead author Anne Adams, both from the University Hospital Cologne in Germany, about a review of intravenous, oral or no iron in combination with erythropoiesis-stimulating agents for cancer patients with anaemia, which was published for the first time in June 2022.

Several of the Cochrane reviews in our collection for COVID-19 relate to diagnosis and the second update for one of these, on the use of rapid point-of-care antigen tests was published in July 2022. Here's lead author Jacqueline Dinnes from the University of Birmingham in the UK to tell us what they found.

The Cochrane Methodology Review Group produces reviews that examine the methods used in research and, in April 2022, we published a new review of the effects of having different types of control group in trials among people with mental health disorders. Here's lead author, Erlend Faltinsen from Cochrane Denmark, to tell us about the review and its findings

The Cochrane Neonatal Group is one of the largest Cochrane groups, with more than 400 reviews published, many of which relate to the care of babies born before they reach full-term. These reviews were added to in April 2022 with a new review of the use of cyclo-oxygenase inhibitors and, in this podcast, one of the group’s researchers, Abbey MacLellan, talks with lead author Souvik Mitra, a neonatologist and clinical epidemiologist at Dalhousie University and IWK Health in Halifax Canada about this network meta-analysis.

Glaucoma is a common eye condition and a major cause of blindness. There are several Cochrane reviews of ways to treat it and these were added to in June 2022 with a new review of a class of drugs called rho kinase inhibitors. We asked lead author, Josefine Freiberg from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark to tell us about the evidence in this podcast.