382,120 papers found

INTRODUCTION: Substance use disorders (SUDs) are common and highly disabling, causing serious long-term harm to people's health. Despite the existence of evidence-based interventions for treating SUDs, many individuals remain symptomatic regardless of treatment, and relapse is common. Acupuncture has been examined for…

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT OF THE STUDY: Neck pain is a prevalent and globally burdensome problem. Clinical practice guidelines have recommended conservative treatments such as education, exercise therapy (ET), manual therapy (MT), and pharmacological therapy (i.e., medication) to manage all types of neck pain based o…

BACKGROUND: The increased incidence of breast cancer implies the appearance of frequent symptoms associated with disease and treatments, such as pain. For the management of this issue, auricular therapy has been used in a complementary manner, especially for its safety and analgesic action. OBJECTIVE: This systematic…

BACKGROUND: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is one of the most common complications of diabetes mellitus. The global burden is immense with a worldwide prevalence of 8.5%. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have demonstrated the potential to transform the landscape of ophthalmology with earlier detection and…

BACKGROUND: Social determinants of health (SDH), including "the conditions in which individuals are born, grow, work, live and age" affect child health and well-being. Several studies have synthesized evidence about the influence of SDH on childhood injury risks and outcomes. However, there is no systematic evidence ab…

BACKGROUND: Depression is common among patients with cancer and is associated with lower treatment participation, lower satisfaction with care, poorer quality of life, greater symptom burden and higher healthcare costs. Various types of interventions (e.g. pharmacological, psychotherapy) are used for the treatment of d…

BACKGROUND: Actinic keratoses (AK) are common precancerous lesions of the skin due to cumulative sun exposure. A variety of interventions are available for the treatment; however, the majority of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses focus on short-term efficacy outcomes. This network meta-analysis aims…

Globally, stroke is the second leading cause of death. Despite the burden of illness and death, few acute interventions are available to patients with ischemic stroke. Over 1,000 potential neuroprotective therapeutics have been evaluated in preclinical models. It is important to use robust evidence synthesis methods to…

INTRODUCTION: The 30-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-30) and the shorter GDS-15, GDS-5 and GDS-4 are recommended as depression screening tools for elderly individuals. Existing meta-analyses on the diagnostic accuracy of the GDS have not been able to conduct subgroup analyses, have included patients already identi…

Several statistical methods for meta-analysis of diagnostic accuracy studies have been discussed in the presence of a gold standard. However, in practice, the selected reference test may be imperfect due to measurement error, non-existence, invasive nature, or expensive cost of a gold standard. It has been suggested th…

BACKGROUND: As a prevalent side effect, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) imposes a burden on the daily lives of patients with breast cancer. Multiple clinical trials have suggested the validity of acupuncture in alleviating CINV; however, the optimal acupuncture modality remains unclear. OBJECTIVE: This…

Study coding is an essential component of the research synthesis process. Data extracted during study coding serve as a direct link between the included studies and the synthesis results, allowing reviewers to justify claims about the findings from a set of related studies. The purpose of this tutorial is to provide au…

BACKGROUND: Rare liver lesions and diseases have seldomly aroused major interest of researchers. For most guidelines, presumably similar clinical conditions are pooled without detailed investigations of singularities that they present. MAIN TEXT: A multidisciplinary project aiming to establish evidence-based therapies…

Clinical trials in head and neck cancer (HNC) face multiple challenges including low global incidence, excessive patient comorbidity rate, high treatment-related toxicity and more recently a changing tumor biology landscape. As clinical trials evolve to address new knowledge about HNC biology, the overall pool of eligi…

Radiotherapy is the primary treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and combination chemotherapy can enhance treatment outcomes for locoregionally advanced disease. The Intergroup 0099 study using concurrent-adjuvant cisplatin-based chemoradiotherapy was the first trial to demonstrate a survival benefit. Since then, ther…

OBJECTIVES: Dose-response meta-analysis (DRMA) is a crucial clinical and epidemiological research tool for synthesizing exposure-risk relationships. Despite its growing use, facilitated by the availability of statistical software, the appropriateness of the underlying statistical methods has not been thoroughly explore…

INTRODUCTION: Perineal trauma is one of the most common complications of childbirth, impacting approximately 9 out of 10 women who undergo a vaginal delivery. Perineal trauma is a public health issue leading to increased maternal morbidity and decreased quality of life. Although race is being studied as a potent…

INTRODUCTION: Osteoporosis is a skeletal condition with decreased bone mass and structural deterioration, increasing fracture vulnerability. Several studies have found a correlation between prostate cancer in men and an increased risk of osteoporosis. This study aims to determine the prevalence of osteoporosis in patie…

BACKGROUND: Many histopathologic prognostic markers, identified by routine hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining, have been proposed for predicting the survival of patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Subsequently, several meta-analyses have been conducted on these prognostic markers. We sought to analyze t…