Cochrane Db Syst Rev
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Mar 2010
Review Meta AnalysisOrganisational travel plans for improving health.
Dependence on car use has a number of broad health implications, including contributing to physical inactivity, road traffic injury, air pollution and social severance, as well as entrenching lifestyles that require environmentally unsustainable energy use. Travel plans are interventions that aim to reduce single-occupant car use and increase the use of alternatives such as walking, cycling and public transport, with a variety of behavioural and structural components. This review focuses on organisational travel plans for schools, tertiary institutes and workplaces. These plans are closely aligned in their aims and intervention design, having emerged from a shared theoretical base. ⋯ There is insufficient evidence to determine whether organisational travel plans are effective for improving health or changing travel mode. Organisational travel plans should be considered as complex health promotion interventions, with considerable potential to influence community health outcomes depending on the environmental context in which they are introduced. Given the current lack of evidence, organisational travel plans should be implemented in the context of robustly-designed research studies, such as well-designed cluster randomised trials.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Mar 2010
Review Meta AnalysisEarly psychological interventions to treat acute traumatic stress symptoms.
The amelioration of psychological distress following traumatic events is a major concern. Systematic reviews suggest that interventions targeted at all of those exposed to such events are not effective at preventing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Recently other forms of intervention have been developed with the aim of treating acute traumatic stress problems. ⋯ There was evidence that individual TF-CBT was effective for individuals with acute traumatic stress symptoms compared to both waiting list and supportive counselling interventions. The quality of trials included was variable and sample sizes were often small. There was considerable clinical heterogeneity in the included studies and unexplained statistical heterogeneity observed in some comparisons. This suggests the need for caution in interpreting the results of this review. Additional high quality trials with longer follow up periods are required to further test TF-CBT and other forms of psychological intervention.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Mar 2010
Review Meta AnalysisEmergency sclerotherapy versus vasoactive drugs for bleeding oesophageal varices in cirrhotic patients.
Emergency sclerotherapy is still widely used as a first line therapy for variceal bleeding in patients with cirrhosis, particularly when banding ligation is not available or feasible. However, pharmacological treatment may stop bleeding in the majority of these patients. ⋯ We found no convincing evidence to support the use of emergency sclerotherapy for variceal bleeding in cirrhosis as the first, single treatment when compared with vasoactive drugs. Vasoactive drugs may be safe and effective whenever endoscopic therapy is not promptly available and seems to be associated with less adverse events than emergency sclerotherapy. Other meta-analyses and guidelines advocate that combined vasoactive drugs and endoscopic therapy is superior to either intervention alone.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Mar 2010
Review Meta AnalysisCombined use of hyperthermia and radiation therapy for treating locally advanced cervix carcinoma.
Hyperthermia is a type of cancer treatment in which body tissue is exposed to high temperatures to damage and kill cancer cells. It was introduced into clinical oncology practice several decades ago. Positive clinical results, mostly obtained in single institutions, resulted in clinical implementation albeit in a limited number of cancer centres worldwide. Because large scale randomised clinical trials (RCTs) are lacking, firm conclusions cannot be drawn regarding its definitive role as an adjunct to radiotherapy in the treatment of locally advanced cervix carcinoma (LACC). ⋯ The limited number of patients available for analysis, methodological flaws and a significant over-representation of patients with FIGO stage IIIB prohibit drawing definite conclusions regarding the impact of adding hyperthermia to standard radiotherapy. However, available data do suggest that the addition of hyperthermia improves local tumour control and overall survival in patients with locally advanced cervix carcinoma without affecting treatment related grade 3 to 4 acute or late toxicity.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Mar 2010
Review Meta AnalysisInterventions for replacing missing teeth: augmentation procedures of the maxillary sinus.
Insufficient bone volume is a common problem encountered in the rehabilitation of the edentulous posterior maxillae with implant-supported prostheses. Bone volume is limited by the presence of the maxillary sinus together with loss of alveolar bone height. Sinus lift procedures increase bone volume by augmenting the sinus cavity with autogenous bone and/or commercially available biomaterials. ⋯ Conclusions are based on few small trials, with short follow-up, and judged to be at high risk of bias. Therefore conclusions should be viewed as preliminary and interpreted with great caution. It is still unclear when sinus lift procedures are needed. 5 mm short implants can be successfully loaded in maxillary bone with a residual height of 4 to 6 mm but their long-term prognosis is unknown. Elevating the sinus lining in presence of 1 to 5 mm of residual bone height without the addition of a bone graft may be sufficient to regenerate new bone to allow rehabilitation with implant-supported prostheses. Bone substitutes might be successfully used as replacements for autogenous bone. If the residual alveolar bone height is 3 to 6 mm a crestal approach to lift the sinus lining, to place 8 mm implants may lead to fewer complications than a lateral window approach, to place implants at least 10 mm long. There is no evidence that PRP treatment improves the clinical outcome of sinus lift procedures with autogenous bone or bone substitutes.