Cochrane Library Podcasts Cochrane

The Cochrane Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care Group has more than 270 active full reviews in the Cochrane Library. They added to these in May 2022 with a new review of the effects of giving antiemetics to adults receiving intravenous opioids in acute care. We asked lead author, Michael Gottlieb from the Department of Emergency Medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, USA, to tell us more in this podcast.

Alongside the dozens of Cochrane Reviews of possible treatments for dementia, are reviews looking at how to diagnose it, including the use of a phone or video call rather than an in-person visit. In April 2022, we added a new review to these, evaluating the accuracy of remote cognitive assessment and we asked Amy Elliott to speak with lead author and colleague at the University of Leicester in England, Lucy Beishon about the review for this podcast.

Alongside quantitative evidence on the effects of healthcare interventions, it's important to have qualitative evidence on people's views about these interventions, particularly if they are delivered at the population level. This is the case with mass drug administration for filariasis, which is a parasitic disease that can result in swollen limbs and disability and, in February 2022, the Cochrane Infectious Diseases group, based at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK, published a qualitative evidence synthesis on community views about this intervention.

The Cochrane programme of reviews for COVID-19 covers both the diagnosis and treatment of the disease and reviews are being updated as new evidence becomes available. Among these is a review of chest imaging for diagnosing the condition, and its fourth version was published in May 2022. We asked the lead author, Sanam Ebrahimzadeh, from The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in Canada, to describe the latest findings in this podcast.

Cochrane Musculoskeletal has produced more than 200 systematic reviews of interventions for the prevention, treatment or rehabilitation of musculoskeletal disorders. These were added to in March 2022 with a new review of the effects of a type of surgery called knee arthroscopy. In this podcast, Ray Moynihan from Bond University in Australia, talks with lead author, Denise O'Connor, from Monash University and Cabrini Hospital in Melbourne.

The most common type of stroke is one in which a large artery in the brain gets blocked by a blood clot and there are dozens of Cochrane reviews of various treatments for these ischaemic strokes. One of these reviews, looking at the effects of endovascular thrombectomy and intra-arterial interventions, was updated in June 2021 and lead author, Melinda Roaldsen from the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, briefly describes the new findings in this  podcast.