Cochrane Library Podcasts

Up to one in four couples planning a baby may have difficulty conceiving. Several interventions are available that might help and Cochrane keeps many of these under review. In July 2017, the Cochrane Review of antioxidants for female subfertility was updated and we asked one of the authors, Dr Rebecca Mackenzie-Proctor from the Auckland City Hospital in New Zealand to tell us about the rationale for the review and the latest evidence.

Alongside thousands of Cochrane Reviews showing the beneficial effects of certain healthcare interventions are some that investigate how to organize and deliver this care. In July 2017, Chantal Arditi from Cochrane Switzerland in the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine in Lausanne, and others updated one of these: a review of computer-generated reminders delivered on paper. We asked her to bring us up to date in this podcast.

For some patients with cancer, their illness is so advanced when it is detected that anticancer treatments might not be able to help. However, these patients might still benefit from palliative care and in a new Cochrane Review from June 2017, Markus Haun from Heidelberg University Hospital in Germany and colleagues investigated the effects of providing palliative care early after the diagnosis of advanced cancer. He tells us what they found in this podcast.

Several drugs have been shown to lower blood pressure in people with hypertension, but it‘s important to know the size of the benefit separately for young healthy adults aged up to 59 years and for those who are 60 or more. A Cochrane Review for the older age group has been available for some time, and Vijaya Musini from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and colleagues in the Cochrane Hypertension Group published the first Cochrane Review for the younger age group in August 2017. Here’s Vijaya to tell us more.

High blood pressure is a chronic condition associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death. Over the last two decades, the Cochrane Hypertension Group has produced numerous reviews of ways to treat it, including one of the effects of a class of drugs called renin inhibitors. The review was updated in April 2017 and we asked the lead author, Vijaya Musini from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver Canada, to tell us about the latest findings.

High blood pressure is a chronic condition associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death. Over the last two decades, the Cochrane Hypertension Group has produced numerous reviews of ways to treat it, including one of the effects of a class of drugs called renin inhibitors. The review was updated in April 2017 and we asked the lead author, Vijaya Musini from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver Canada, to tell us about the latest findings.

For some patients with cancer, their illness is so advanced when it is detected that anticancer treatments might not be able to help. However, these patients might still benefit from palliative care and in a new Cochrane Review from June 2017, Markus Haun from Heidelberg University Hospital in Germany and colleagues investigated the effects of providing palliative care early after the diagnosis of advanced cancer. He tells us what they found in this podcast.

Several drugs have been shown to lower blood pressure in people with hypertension, but it‘s important to know the size of the benefit separately for young healthy adults aged up to 59 years and for those who are 60 or more. A Cochrane Review for the older age group has been available for some time, and Vijaya Musini from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and colleagues in the Cochrane Hypertension Group published the first Cochrane Review for the younger age group in August 2017. Here’s Vijaya to tell us more.

The Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group at the University of Oxford in the UK is one of the oldest groups working on Cochrane Reviews. It has produced dozens of these during the last two decades and, in 2016, it embarked on a project to identify the top priorities for future research into tobacco control. After an extensive and intensive period of information gathering and processing, the findings were published in September 2017. We asked Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, Senior Researcher and Managing Editor in the Cochrane group to tell us about the global importance of what they found.

An abdominal aortic aneurysm is a life threatening condition and patients might need lifelong monitoring after treatment. Ultrasonogaphy is sometimes used for this and a new Cochrane Review from June 2017 looks at its accuracy. The review was done by a team from Italy and Kathy Mahan from the Cochrane Neurosciences group, also based in Italy, tells us what they found.