Re: Cochrane review
Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 8:51 am
Great news about the Cochrane Review.
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Actually, Cochrane has reviewed a lot of quack medicine whose effects many people seriously think don't exist. For example, I see four reviews of homeopathy on their website. Homeopathy is pretty much the poster child for ridiculous can't-possibly-work quack therapies. They also have numerous reviews of acupuncture, various herbal remedies, etc, all of which have many serious doubters (though these aren't nearly as implausible as homeopathy). A large number of these reviews merely conclude that there isn't yet enough evidence to conclude whether or not they work, which I suspect will be the CCSVI review's conclusion as well.1eye wrote:While they might just be fronts for the nay-sayers, I think the Cochrane review is highly regarded, and it is unlikely that they would be interested in meta-analysis of things anyone seriously thinks don't exist. I suppose anything is possible but I doubt it.
None of the current research meets the Cochrane review standards.Authors' conclusions
There is currently no high level evidence to support or refute the efficacy or safety of percutaneous transluminal angioplasty for treatment of CCSVI in people with MS. Clinical practice should be guided by evidence supported by well-designed randomised controlled trials: closure of some of the gaps in the evidence may be feasible at the time of completion of the six ongoing clinical trials.
Our searches retrieved 159 references, six of which were to ongoing trials. Based on assessment of the title or abstract, or both, we excluded all of the studies, with the exception of one which was evaluated following examination of the full text report. However, this study also did not meet our inclusion criteria and was subsequently excluded.