Revisiting the Cochrane Collaboration

摘要

In 1992, Iain Chalmers and colleagues wrote an editorial in the BMJ that began with the above quotation and set out challenges foreseen at the time of the opening of what became the first Cochrane Centre, in Oxford. Some of these challenges have been met, some remain, and new ones have arisen as the centre which is now the Cochrane Collaboration strives to prepare and keep up to date systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions. At the time, the major hurdle facing reviewers was identifying relevant randomised trials, and the editorial described efforts to make the task easier. Nine years on, these efforts have contributed to the Cochrane controlled trials register, which now contains more than 300 000 records. Much work, however, remains to be done-for example, identifying trials in conference proceedings, arranging translations where needed of trials under review, or getting additional data from the trialists. One development, which should make reviewing easier, is a system to register prospectively all randomised trials and assign unique identifiers to each.