News from The Cochrane Collaboration
By Dr Simon French

Cochrane Library
The Cochrane Library should be your first point of call when you are looking for the most up-to-date evidence in any area of health care. The Cochrane Library is released four times per year. All Australians have open access to the full text of all Cochrane Reviews thanks to a National licence from the Commonwealth Government. Just put the following address in your internet browser and click away: www.thecochranelibrary.org.

Each issue is packed with articles of interest to chiropractors and osteopaths. Here are just a few new or updated systematic reviews from the latest issue (Issue #2, 2005):

• Acupuncture for depression
• Acupuncture for shoulder pain
• Bed rest during pregnancy for preventing miscarriage
• Cephalic version by moxibustion for breech presentation
• Electrotherapy for neck disorders
• Glucosamine therapy for treating osteoarthritis
• Manual therapy for asthma
• St John’s Wort for depression
• Surgery for degenerative lumbar spondylosis
• Viscosupplementation for the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee
• Vitamin C supplementation in pregnancy

Cochrane Colloquium
The Cochrane Colloquium, the annual scientific and business meeting of the Cochrane Collaboration, will be held in Melbourne from 22 to 26 October. Early registration closes on 15 July.

The theme of the Colloquium is ‘corroboree’ and the scientific program will appeal to all those involved in generating and using evidence to inform decision-making, whether as clinicians, policy-makers, researchers or consumers. Among the international speakers that will be in Melbourne are Doug Altman, Sir Iain Chalmers and Muir Gray. In addition to the program of plenaries, papers and workshops, there will be special sessions on Cochrane reviews of diagnostic test accuracy, new methods for assessing bias in studies, and systematic reviews that incorporate economic evaluations. Full details are available on the website: www.colloquium.info

Tsunami Response – Evidence Aid
Since the tsunami, many individuals and Cochrane entities have been working together on The Cochrane Collaboration’s response to that disaster. This has included work on “Evidence Aid”, in which evidence relevant to the aftermath of the tsunami, and to other disasters and health care emergencies, has been brought together.

Evidence Aid brings together reliable and relevant information on the effects of relevant healthcare interventions. Concise summaries are being made available, free of charge, on the Internet through a special section on The Cochrane Collaboration’s website:

www.cochrane.org/docs/tsunamiresponse/index.htm

The special section on the website highlights evidence relevant to the effects of interventions. It has been designed to try to help people making decisions about health care in the aftermath of the tsunami, but will also be relevant to other disasters and health care emergencies. The topics have been identified as priorities by people in the region and relate to treatments that might be used or available.