Cochrane Db Syst Rev
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Jan 2003
ReviewRepeat doses of prenatal corticosteroids for women at risk of preterm birth for preventing neonatal respiratory disease.
Infants born preterm are at high risk of neonatal lung disease and its sequelae. A single course of prenatal corticosteroids has not been shown to be of benefit in babies who are born more than seven days after treatment. It is not known whether there is benefit in repeating the dose of prenatal corticosteroids to women who remain at risk of preterm birth more than seven days after an initial course. ⋯ Repeat dose(s) of prenatal corticosteroids may reduce the severity of neonatal lung disease. However, there is insufficient evidence on the benefits and risks to recommend repeat dose(s) of prenatal corticosteroids for women at risk of preterm birth for the prevention of neonatal respiratory disease. Further trials are required.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Jan 2003
ReviewCytotoxic drugs and interferons for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy.
Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy is a disease causing progressive or relapsing and remitting weakness and numbness. It is probably due to an autoimmune inflammatory process. Immunosuppressive or immunomodulatory drugs would be expected to be beneficial. ⋯ The evidence is inadequate to decide whether azathioprine, interferon beta or any other immunosuppressive drug or interferon is beneficial in chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy.
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Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common skin malignancy in humans. BCCs are defined as slow-growing, locally invasive, malignant (but not life threatening), epidermal skin tumours which mainly affect white skinned people. The first line treatment is usually surgical excision, but numerous alternatives are available. ⋯ There has been very little good quality research on efficacy of the treatment modalities used. Most of the trials have looked only at BCCs in low risk areas. Surgery and radiotherapy appear to be the most effective treatments with surgery showing the lowest failure rates. Other treatments might have some use but few have been compared to surgery. Imiquimod emerged as a possible new treatment although it has not been compared to surgery or any other modality.
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Olanzapine is an atypical antipsychotic that is reported to be effective without producing the disabling extrapyramidal side effects associated with the older, typical antipsychotic drugs. ⋯ The large proportions of participants leaving the studies early, in the large multi-centre trials makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions on clinical effects. For people with schizophrenia olanzapine may offer antipsychotic efficacy with fewer extrapyramidal side effects than typical drugs but more weight gain. Large, long-term randomised trials with participants, interventions and primary outcomes that are familiar to those wishing to help those with schizophrenia are long overdue.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Jan 2003
ReviewCommunication skills training for health care professionals working with cancer patients, their families and/or carers.
Research suggests communication skills do not reliably improve with experience and considerable effort is dedicated to courses improving communication skills for health professionals. The evaluation of such courses is of importance to enable evidence-based teaching and practice. ⋯ The training programmes assessed by these trials appear to be effective in improving cancer care professionals communication skills. It is not known whether the training would be effective if taught by other educators, nor has any trial compared the efficacy of both programmes.