Cochrane Library Podcasts

Alongside increasing efforts to deliver health care remotely, there is a need for research to assess the effects of these new approaches. In a new Cochrane Review from December 2016, Pawel Posadzki from the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine in Singapore, and colleagues bring together the evidence on automated telephone communication systems. We asked Pawel to tell us what they found.

Stomach cancer is the fifth most common cancer and third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Molecular-targeted therapy is one of the newer treatments and a new Cochrane Review in July 2016 looks at the evidence from randomized trials. Lead author, Huan Song from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, tells us more in this podcast.

Low back pain is a substantial health problem, and several Cochrane Reviews investigate interventions to help treat it. In a new Cochrane Review in January 2016, Bruno Saragiotto from The George Institute for Global Health, in Sydney Australia, and colleagues examined the evidence for motor control exercise. He tells us what they found in this podcast.

Blood transfusions are a very common medical procedure, and it’s important to balance the potential benefits and harms. In October 2016, Jeffery Carson from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, in New Brunswick in the USA, and colleagues updated the Cochrane Review of research comparing different triggers for transfusing red blood cells and we asked him to tell us more about the importance of the review and its findings.

Diabetes affects millions of people worldwide, causing a variety of health problems, including foot ulcers. In a new Cochrane Overview in July 2015, Jo Dumville from the Division of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Manchester in the UK and colleagues bring together the findings from 13 systematic reviews. She summarises all this evidence in this Podcast.

Patients undergoing dental treatment will often feel the discomfort of the gag reflex, and a new Cochrane Review in October 2015 sought out evidence on how to manage it. Lead author, Prashanti Eachempati from the Faculty of Dentistry at the Melaka-Manipal Medical College in Malaysia tells us what they found in this podcast.

The misuse of psychostimulants is a growing medical and social problem. A team of Cochrane researchers from Italy have looked at the evidence for psychosocial interventions in a new Cochrane Review from September 2016. One of the authors, Franco De Crescenzo from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome tells us more in this podcast.

Anemia is one of the common side effects of cancer chemotherapy and it can be treated by a group of drugs called Erythropoiesis-stimulating agents. However, these are not always successful on their own and iron might also be added. A new Cochrane Review in February 2016 examines the evidence for its effectiveness and lead author, Rahul Mhaskar, from the University of South Florida in the USA, tells us more in this podcast.

The Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group celebrated its 20th birthday in 2016 and continues to produce new and updated reviews that help people making decisions about ways to quit smoking. In May 2016, the Group updated its review of the effects of nicotine receptor partial agonists and we asked the group’s Managing Editor and one of the authors of the review, Nicola Lindson-Hawley from the University of Oxford in England, to tell us what they found.

June 2016 saw the updating of the Cochrane Review on the effects of antibiotics for children with otitis media with effusion. We asked lead author, Roderick Venekamp, University Medical Center in Utrecht, The Netherlands, to tell us what they found.