Cochrane Library Podcasts

Some Cochrane reviews investigate the effects of different ways of stopping, rather than starting treatments. A new review in April 2021 does this for adults who have been taking antidepressants for some time. One of the authors, Mieke van Driel from The  University of Queensland in Australia tells us more in this podcast.

In March 2021, the Cochrane Neuro-Oncology Group published a series of eight new complex systematic reviews on priority topics for the brain tumour community. These were selected from the most important unanswered questions identified by people in this area using James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership methods, which bring together patients and the public with practitioners. One of the reviews was a network meta-analysis of treatments for glioblastoma in the elderly and we asked lead author, Catherine Hanna from the University of Glasgow in the UK, to tell us about the condition and the review.

Many healthcare organizations use electronic health records to manage patient data and it has been suggested that it may be beneficial if patients can access their own records as well. In this podcast, Christina Cannellopoulos talks with lead author Elske Ammenwerth, a researcher in Medical Informatics from the University UMIT TIROL in Austria, about their Cochrane Review on this topic.

Cochrane is producing a series of reviews to help decision makers respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re keeping these reviews up to date as new evidence emerges and are now on the fourth version of our living review of convalescent plasma and hyperimmune immunoglobulin for COVID-19 patients, which was published in May 2021. In this podcast, Vanessa Piechotta speaks with one of the lead authors, Claire Iannizzi both from the University Hospital Cologne in Germany about the latest findings.

Postnatal depression affects many women in the months after having their baby and one of the early Cochrane Reviews looked at its treatment with antidepressants. The very first version of the review was published in 2001, and the review has been refreshed and updated again, with a new version published in February 2021. Here’s one of the authors, Claire Wilson from King’s College London in the UK, to tell us more.

Infectious diarrhoea is responsible for many thousands of deaths every day around the world and probiotics have been suggested as a possible treatment. The relevant Cochrane Review was updated for the second time in December 2020 and first author, Shelui Collinson from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK describes the latest findings in this podcast.

In March 2021, the Cochrane Neuro-Oncology Group published a series of eight new systematic reviews on priority topics for the brain tumour community. These were selected from the most important unanswered questions identified by patients, the public and practitioners. In this podcast, Kathreena Kurian from the University of Bristol in the UK tells us about one of the reviews, which looked at the evidence on tests that might help to predict survival in patients who have received chemotherapy for glioblastoma.

The Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group has done many reviews of interventions that might prevent stillbirth and, in December 2020, they brought these together in an overview. In this podcast, one of the Group’s researchers, Dell Horey, talks with lead author Erika Ota, a professor at the St. Luke’s International University in Japan, about the findings.

As well as examining the evidence for starting patients on drug treatments, Cochrane Reviews also look at the relative benefits of stopping or continuing once someone has started taking them. This is the case with a February 2021 review of the effects of withdrawing or continuing two common classes of drug treatment for people with dementia. We asked lead author, Carole Parsons from Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland to tell us what they found.

The Cochrane Anaesthesia Group has produced a wide variety of reviews relevant to procedures related to surgery. One of these looks at the use of melatonin for preoperative and postoperative anxiety in adults and it was updated in December 2020. We asked the new lead author, Bennedikte Madsen, from the Center for Perioperative Optimizationin Herlev Hospital in Denmark to tell us about the latest findings.