Cochrane Library Podcasts

Recent decades have seen greater and greater use of laparoscopy, or keyhole surgery, when people need an operation on their abdomen. There are now dozens of Cochrane Reviews of this, for a wide variety of conditions and, in October 2018, the one for laparoscopy versus laparotomy, or open surgery, for women with early stage endometrial cancer was updated. The review is led by Khadra Galaal from the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro in the UK and she tells us the latest findings in this podcast.

When someone mentions the workplace and health, our first thoughts might be about safety and avoiding accidents, but workplaces also provide an opportunity for interventions to improve the general health of employees. Luke Wolfenden of the University of Newcastle in Callaghan, Australia and colleagues have looked into this and we asked him to tell us what they found for their new Cochrane Review, published in November 2018.

Doctors looking after newborn babies need to be able to detect infections early and accurately if they are to prevent the baby from becoming seriously ill. One of the tests suggested for doing this is to measure their c-reactive protein and this was assessed in a new Cochrane Review in January 2019. We asked the lead author, Jennifer Brown from the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York in the UK, to tell us why this review is so important and what it found.

Wrist fractures are the most common bone injury in children, causing much pain, distress and life impact for them and their families. In a comprehensive Cochrane Review from December 2018, Joanne Elliott, Managing Editor of the Cochrane Bone, Joint and Muscle Trauma Group based at the University of Manchester in the UK and colleagues, also based in the UK, look at a variety of interventions that are used for these fractures and she outlines the findings in this podcast.

The Cochrane Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care Group is producing a series of reviews on drugs for the treatment of people with neuropathic pain. One of these, published in March 2018, examines the effects of cannabis-based medicines and we asked one of the authors, Martin Mücke from the University Hospital of Bonn in Germany, to outline the findings in this podcast.

When someone has an acute ischemic stroke, urgent effective, simple and reliable treatments will reduce their risks of disability or dying from their brain tissue damage. The treatments used vary around the world, and a drug called cerebrolysin is widely used in post-Soviet countries, Eastern Europe, Central and Southeast Asia. In April 2017, the latest update of this review was published by researchers from Kazan Federal University in Russia and Chinara Razzakova, a PhD student from the university interviewed one of the authors, Liliya Eugenevna, for this podcast.

The use of pain-relieving drugs during labour is common throughout the world, and an updated Cochrane Review from June 2018 looks at the use of a class of drugs called opioids. Lead author, Lesley Smith from Oxford Brookes University in the UK tells us what they found.

Up to 70 million people worldwide have epilepsy and there are many Cochrane Reviews of ways to treat it. These include reviews that work with the original researchers to gather data on everyone who was in their studies, to perform individual participant data meta-analyses. In June 2018, Sarah Nevitt and colleagues from the University of Liverpool in the UK updated one of these reviews, comparing two commonly used drugs, lamotrigine and carbamazepine.

A common consequence for people who have a stroke is a reduction in their arm function. Various approaches are available to try to help and, in September 2018, the Cochrane Review for one of these, electromechanical and robot‐assisted arm training, was updated by a team of researchers from Germany. We asked lead author, Jan Mehrholz from Dresden Medical School, to tell us about the latest findings in this podcast.

Omega-3 fats are the subject of more than two dozen Cochrane Reviews for conditions including cardiovascular health, dementia and gastrointestinal problems. In November 2018, the review on the effects on preterm birth when these are taken by pregnant women was updated. The review was led by Associate Professor Philippa Middleton and Professor Maria Makrides, from the Healthy Mothers Babies and Children theme at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. Professor Makrides tells us about the latest evidence.