Cochrane

Amitriptyline is a tricyclic antidepressant drug that has been used for decades in the treatment of depression. The current review includes 39 trials with a total of 3509 participants and confirms its efficacy compared to placebo or no treatment. This finding is important, because the efficacy of antidepressants has recently been questioned. However, ...

Many people with diabetes (around 20% to 60%) are are affected by high blood pressure (hypertension) and need drugs (antihypertensive agents) to treat this condition. These drugs also help to prevent development of kidney disease both in people with diabetes who have normal blood pressure and those whose blood pressure is high. Many people with diabetic ...

Protocol: This review will compare all surgical techniques that are being used for appendiceal stump closure during laparoscopic appendectomy.

Assisted hatching is a technique sometimes used for IVF (in vitro fertilisation) and similar procedures. It involves thinning the coat surrounding the fertilised egg, or making a hole in it. It is suggested that this may improve the chance of the embryo attaching to the womb so that pregnancy can begin. In this review of randomised controlled trials ...

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease. Leprosy bacteria cause damage to skin and peripheral nerves which may result in nerve function impairment and disability. Decompressive surgery is used for treating nerve damage although its effect is uncertain. Two randomised controlled trials (RCTs) were included in the review and examined the added benefit ...

Introduction Researchers in The Cochrane Collaboration conducted a review of the effect of epoetin and darbepoetin for people with cancer. After searching for all relevant studies, they found 91 studies with up to 20,102 people. Their findings are summarized below: What the research says: In people with cancer-related anaemia: - Epoetin and darbepoetin ...

Actinic keratoses are a skin disease caused by long-term sun exposure. Damaged skin shows small, red, rough, scaly, flat spots called actinic keratoses or lesions, which feel like patches of dry skin. Symptoms such as bleeding and pain can be associated with actinic keratoses. Moreover, actinic keratoses have the potential to develop into skin cancer ...

Many people suffer from long-term conditions such as asthma or diabetes. To make living with the long-term illnesses as easy as possible, people have to regularly monitor the symptoms of their conditions and adapt their lifestyles. This review studied whether mobile phone applications such as Short Message Service (SMS) (also known as text messaging) ...

Patients with narrowed arteries of the lower limbs may be hampered by pain in their calves after relatively short walks. This limits the distance they can walk, and hence their quality of life. This is a sure sign of atherosclerosis. These patients are at greater risk of cardiovascular death and should take preventive measures. The symptoms of the disease ...

We compared radiotherapy with chemotherapy and radiotherapy before surgery in rectal cancer. We looked at people who had rectal cancer that had spread to the lymph glands but not to the liver or other organs. We found that both groups had the same number of people alive after 5 years. In other words; neither treatment was better at making people live ...