Literature searching for clinical and cost-effectiveness studies used in health technology assessment reports carried out for the National Institute for Clinical Excellence appraisal system

Abstract

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Efficacy and safety of balloon kyphoplasty in the treatment of vertebral compression fractures: a systematic review

“…The present systematic review includes published and unpublished studies, and data from the FDA [5,33,45], and we believe it to be the largest such effort made to date. The results obtained show that BK produces significant reduction in pain intensity, regardless of the method used to evaluate it, and moreover also affords significant improvement in mobility, functional capacity, and quality of life.…”

“…For inclusion, the studies were required to meet the following criteria: (a) design: studies conducted in ten or more patients that contained relevant primary clinical data. Since the aim was to analyze the available clinical evidence on BK, no other limitations were imposed-inclusion being made of both experimental and observational designs [45]; (b) population: patients with VCFs of osteoporotic and/or tumoral origin; (c) intervention: BK; (d) comparator: any other medical or surgical procedure; (e) outcomes: the studies were required to include quantitative information relating to at least one of the following primary interest variables: pain, vertebral height, kyphotic deformity, functional capacity, quality of life (QoL), cement material leakage, complications, and the development of new vertebral fractures. The use of health care resources was included as a secondary variable.…”

Consenso Delphi sobre el manejo de la dislipidemia en pacientes con alteración del metabolismo de la glucosa: estudio Diana

“…Junto con la colaboración de un asesor metodológico externo elaboraron los contenidos del cuestionario Delphi. Para ello se llevó a cabo una búsqueda bibliográfica priorizando los metaanálisis/revisiones sistemáticas y otro tipo de síntesis crítica de literatura científica a través de la consulta de bases de datos bibliográficas habituales 16 (MEDLINE, EMBASE y el Índice Médico Español), así como una revisión manual de las referencias bibliográ-ficas obtenidas para identificar otras que pudieran ser de interés a partir de palabras clave como dislipidemia, diabetogenicidad o alteración del metabolismo de la glucosa.…”

Searching for religion and mental health studies required health, social science, and grey literature databases

“…Investigations into database selection for health systematic reviews highlight the importance of searching beyond MEDLINE (9)(10)(11), but also point to inefficiencies in searching too many databases (12)(13)(14). It is unclear if this applies to multi-disciplinary qualitative syntheses or reviews.…”

“…We used similar methods to those for assessing database sources for systematic reviews (11,12,20,21) and Health Technology Assessments (14) to develop a priority list of sources for studies of religion and depression. This paper differs from previous work because it prioritises databases for any study design within a specific subject area, rather than prioritising databases for reports of a particular study design (e.g.…”