Meta-analysis on inhaled therapies for COPD: Interview with editors

Cochrane Airways have published its biggest ever Cochrane Review. The meta-analysis review assesseswhich long-acting inhalers are the most effective and safest for people with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and   supports a recently publishedNICE guideline.The logistics of getting such a large review done with time tight timescales have been an enormous challenge for the review team. We asked Rebecca Normansell, Joint Co-ordinating Editor and Emma Dennett, Managing Editor, Cochrane Airways, how this review came about and its potential impact.How did the review come about?We received a review proposal towards the end of 2015 from a chest physician in the USA, Yuji Oba, who had identified from his own practice an important clinical question about inhalers for COPD. He had already reviewed the literature and published on the subject, but was aware of new data and was interested in producing a Cochrane Review. He had assembled a team including a UK-based expert in network meta-analysis (NMA), Sofia Dias, with whom we had worked before. We agreed it was an important question, but needed to refine the comparisons in the NMA to minimise overlap with an existing Airways NMA and other reviews. After a bit of back and forth between the editorial base and the authors, we registered the title and the protocol was published in March 2017.This is the biggest the airways group has done - how many people were involved, did it ' draw ' on the team in a unique way?The r...
Source: Cochrane News and Events - Category: Information Technology Authors: Source Type: news