Cochrane Db Syst Rev
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Aug 2019
Multiple session early psychological interventions for the prevention of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The prevention of long-term psychological distress following traumatic events is a major concern. Systematic reviews have suggested that individual psychological debriefing is not an effective intervention at preventing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Over the past 20 years, other forms of intervention have been developed with the aim of preventing PTSD. ⋯ While the review found some beneficial effects of multiple session early psychological interventions in the prevention of PTSD, the certainty of the evidence was low due to the high risk of bias in the included trials. The clear practice implication of this is that, at present, multiple session interventions aimed at everyone exposed to traumatic events cannot be recommended. There are a number of ongoing studies, demonstrating that this is a fast moving field of research. Future updates of this review will integrate the results of these new studies.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Aug 2019
ReviewWITHDRAWN: Peripheral nerve blocks for postoperative pain after major knee surgery.
Major knee surgery is a common operative procedure to help people with end-stage knee disease or trauma to regain mobility and have improved quality of life. Poorly controlled pain immediately after surgery is still a key issue for this procedure. Peripheral nerve blocks are localized and site-specific analgesic options for major knee surgery. The increasing use of peripheral nerve blocks following major knee surgery requires the synthesis of evidence to evaluate its effectiveness and safety, when compared with systemic, local infiltration, epidural and spinal analgesia. ⋯ All of the included studies reported the main outcome of pain intensity but did not cover all the secondary outcomes of interest. The current review provides evidence that the use of peripheral nerve blocks as adjunctive techniques to systemic analgesia reduced pain intensity when compared with systemic analgesia alone after major knee surgery. There were too few data to draw conclusions on other outcomes of interest. More trials are needed to demonstrate a significant difference when compared with local infiltration, epidural analgesia and spinal analgesia.
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Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with high morbidity and death, which increases as CKD progresses to end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). There has been increasing interest in developing innovative, effective and cost-efficient methods to engage with patient populations and improve health behaviours and outcomes. Worldwide there has been a tremendous increase in the use of technologies, with increasing interest in using eHealth interventions to improve patient access to relevant health information, enhance the quality of healthcare and encourage the adoption of healthy behaviours. ⋯ eHealth interventions may improve the management of dietary sodium intake and fluid management. However, overall these data suggest that current evidence for the use of eHealth interventions in the CKD population is of low quality, with uncertain effects due to methodological limitations and heterogeneity of eHealth modalities and intervention types. Our review has highlighted the need for robust, high quality research that reports a core (minimum) data set to enable meaningful evaluation of the literature.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Aug 2019
Azathioprine and 6-mercaptopurine for maintenance of surgically-induced remission in Crohn's disease.
Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic relapsing inflammatory condition and maintenance of remission is a major issue as many patients fail to achieve remission with medical management and require surgical interventions. Purine analogues such as azathioprine (AZA) and 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) have been used to maintain surgically-induced remission in CD, but the effectiveness, tolerability and safety of these agents remains controversial. ⋯ Moderate certainty evidence suggests that AZA and 6-MP may be superior to placebo for maintenance of surgically-induced remission in participants with CD. There was no clear difference in the number of clinical relapses when purine analogues were compared with 5-ASA agents, however this is based on low certainty evidence. There was very low certainty evidence that AZA and 6-MP are more likely to result in more serious adverse events (SAEs) and withdrawals due to an AE (low certainty) when compared to 5-ASA agents. Very low certainty evidence suggests that purine analogues may be inferior to anti-TNF-α agents, however, no firm conclusions can be drawn. Further research investigating the efficacy and safety of AZA and 6-MP in comparison to other active medications in surgically-induced remission of CD is warranted.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Aug 2019
Long-term neurocognitive and other side effects of radiotherapy, with or without chemotherapy, for glioma.
Gliomas are brain tumours arising from glial cells with an annual incidence of 4 to 11 people per 100,000. In this review we focus on gliomas with low aggressive potential in the short term, i.e. low-grade gliomas. Most people with low-grade gliomas are treated with surgery and may receive radiotherapy thereafter. However, there is concern about the possible long-term effects of radiotherapy, especially on neurocognitive functioning. ⋯ Radiotherapy for gliomas with a good prognosis may increase the risk of neurocognitive side effects in the long term; however the magnitude of the risk is uncertain. Evidence on long-term neurocognitive side effects associated with chemoradiotherapy is also uncertain. Neurocognitive assessment should be an integral part of long-term follow-up in trials involving radiotherapy for lower-grade gliomas to improve the certainty of evidence regarding long-term neurocognitive effects. Such trials should also assess other potential long-term effects, including endocrine dysfunction, and evaluate costs and cost effectiveness.