Cochrane Db Syst Rev
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Schizophrenia can be a severe and chronic illness characterised by lack of insight and poor compliance with treatment. Psychoeducational approaches have been developed to increase patients' knowledge of, and insight into, their illness and its treatment. It is supposed that this increased knowledge and insight will enable people with schizophrenia to cope in a more effective way with their illness, thereby improving prognosis. ⋯ Psychoeducation does seem to reduce relapse, readmission and encourage medication compliance, as well as reduce the length of hospital stay in these hospital-based studies of limited quality. The true size of effect is likely to be less than demonstrated in this review - but, nevertheless, some sort of psychoeducation could be clinically effective and potentially cost beneficial. It is not difficult to justify better, more applicable, research in this area aimed at fully investigating the effects of this promising approach.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Jun 2011
Review Meta AnalysisWeight reduction for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is becoming a wide spread liver disease. The present recommendations for treatment are not evidence-based. Some of them are various weight reduction measures with diet, exercise, drug, or surgical therapy. ⋯ The sparse data and high risk of bias preclude us from drawing any definite conclusion on lifestyle programme or orlistat for treatment of NAFLD. Further randomised clinical trials with low risk of bias are needed to test the beneficial and harmful effects of weight reduction for NAFLD patients. The long-term prognosis of development of fibrosis, mortality, and quality of life should be studied.
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Endometrial cancer is the most common genital tract carcinoma among women in developed countries, with most women presenting with stage 1 disease. Adjuvant progestagen therapy has been advocated following primary surgery to reduce the risk of recurrence of disease. ⋯ There is no evidence to support the use of adjuvant progestagen therapy in the primary treatment of endometrial cancer.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Jun 2011
Review Meta AnalysisAntipsychotic medication for early episode schizophrenia.
Long-term treatment with antipsychotic medications in early episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders is common, but both short and long-term effects on the illness are unclear. There have been numerous suggestions that people with early episodes of schizophrenia appear to respond differently than those with multiple prior episodes. The number of episodes may moderate response to drug treatment. ⋯ With only a few studies meeting inclusion criteria, and with limited useable data in these studies, it is not possible to arrive at definitive conclusions. The preliminary pattern of evidence suggests that people with early episode schizophrenia treated with typical antipsychotic medications are less likely to leave the study early, but more likely to experience medication-related side effects. Data are too sparse to assess the effects of antipsychotic medication on outcomes in early episode schizophrenia.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Jun 2011
Review Meta AnalysisCardioprotective interventions for cancer patients receiving anthracyclines.
Anthracyclines are among the most effective chemotherapeutic agents in the treatment of numerous malignancies. Unfortunately, their use is limited by a dose-dependent cardiotoxicity. In an effort to prevent this cardiotoxicity, different cardioprotective agents have been studied. ⋯ No definitive conclusions can be made about the efficacy of cardioprotective agents for which pooling of results was impossible. Dexrazoxane prevents heart damage and no evidence for a difference in response rate or survival between the dexrazoxane and control groups was identified. The evidence available did not allow us to reach any definite conclusions about adverse effects. We conclude that if the risk of cardiac damage is expected to be high, it might be justified to use dexrazoxane in patients with cancer treated with anthracyclines. However, clinicians should weigh the cardioprotective effect of dexrazoxane against the possible risk of adverse effects for each individual patient.