CONFLICT OF INTEREST: NONE DECLAREDEvidence based medicine (EBM) is the conscientious, explicit, judicious and reasonable use of modern, best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. EBM integrates clinical experience and patient values with the best available research information. It is a movement which aims to increase the use of high quality clinical research in clinical decision making. EBM requires new skills of the clinician, including efficient literature-searching, and the application of formal rules of evidence in evaluating the clinical literature. The practice of evidence-based medicine is a process of lifelong, self-directed, problem-based learning in which caring for one’s own patients creates the need for clinically important information about diagnosis, prognosis, therapy and other clinical and health care issues. It is not “cookbook” with recipes, but its good application brings cost-effective and better health care. The key difference between evidence-based medicine and traditional medicine is not that EBM considers the evidence while the latter does not. Both take evidence into account; however, EBM demands better evidence than has traditionally been used. One of the greatest achievements of evidence-based medicine has been the development of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, methods by which researchers identify multiple studies on a topic, separate the best ones and then critically analyze them to come up with a summary of the best available evidence. The EBM-oriented clinicians of tomorrow have three tasks: a) to use evidence summaries in clinical practice; b) to help develop and update selected systematic reviews or evidence-based guidelines in their area of expertise; and c) to enrol patients in studies of treatment, diagnosis and prognosis on which medical practice is based.

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Background and Aim Congenital malformations are one of the important reasons of mortality and morbidity in newborns. The aim of this study is to give the frequency and distribution of the congenital malformation in a neonatal intensive care unit from Turkey. Method A retrospective analysis of congenital abnormalities in singleton births was performed to identify frequency, types, combined congenital abnormalities and distribution of malformation in newborns over a 7 year period. Congenital malformations were classified according to involved organ systems and also classed as single and multiple malformations. Result 1024 newborns with congenital malformations (13.7%) were identified among the 7450 hospitalized newborns in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Mean birth weight was 2988±648gr, mean gestational age was 37.9±2.5 weeks. Consanguinity rate was 22.3%. Prenatal diagnosis rate was 11%. The most affected system was the cardiovascular system (68.8%). Most of the malformations (69.6%) were single malformations while 20.4% of the newborns had multiple major and 8.4% of the newborns had multiple minor malformations. On the other hand, 1.4%, 0.1% and 1.6% of the newborns had deformation, disruption and displasia, respectively. Chromosomal analysis was only performed 24.8% and 65.3% of them were in normal limits. The most frequently detected chromosomal abnormality was Trisomy 21. Overall mortality rate was 15.5% among the newborns with congenital malformations. Conclusion The most common congenital malformation was cardio-vascular malformations in our hospital. Preventing and prenatal diagnosis of congenital malformations may help to reduce perinatal mortality and morbidity.Therefore, each country should establish its own national database for prevention and management of congenital malformations.