BioMed Central Blog
A new tool in the fight against healthcare-associated infection
Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control (ARIC) has launched with BioMed Central today.
Led by Andreas Voss, ARIC is a global forum for the scientific community working on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of healthcare-associated infections.
Healthcare-associated infections are on the rise because of changes in healthcare systems and the spread of antimicrobial-resistant strains of both new and well-known pathogens. With increasing numbers of people travelling nationally and internationally, borders to transmission of infections no longer exist and fighting healthcare-associated infections has truly become a global challenge.
Therefore, it is important to share knowledge in this field on a global scale. This was highlighted at the 1st International Conference on Prevention and Infection Control and consequently ARIC was born.
With the support of an internationally recognized Editorial Board, ARIC aims to become the leading resource for the dissemination of scientific knowledge on all aspects of healthcare-associated infections. Please visit the journal website to learn more about the ARIC and to submit your research.
Posted by Srimathy Sriskantharajah at 17:15 Comments (0)
An event to celebrate the launch of Flavour – a new journal from BioMed Central
BioMed Central is collaborating with the London Gastronomy Seminars and the Centre for the Study of the Senses, University of London, to host an evening exploring how flavour shapes our world.
Flavour and the
New Nordic Cuisine is a seminar to celebrate the launch of Flavour,
a new interdisciplinary journal from BioMed Central covering the
psychophysical, psychological and chemical aspects of eating food, as mediated
through all the senses. Flavour publishes peer-reviewed research on all aspects of eating food including
contributions from neuroscience, genetics, psychology and sensory science.
Flavour encourages contributions not only from the academic community but also from the growing number of chefs and other food professionals who are introducing science into their kitchens, often in collaboration with academic research groups.
Speakers Per Møller, Ole Mouritsen and Lars Williams will discuss how we perceive taste and flavour, whilst describing new food and flavourings developed by Noma and the Nordic Food Lab for the New Nordic Cuisine.
Flavour and the
New Nordic Cuisine is at 6.30 pm on Wednesday 28th March 2012
at Senate House, University of London, U.K. For further information and to
purchase tickets, visit the London Gastronomy Seminars website.
Posted by Laura Winton at 14:00 Comments (0)
BMC journals on track for Impact Factor
BMC Biophysics, BMC Ecology and BMC Endocrine Disorders have all recently been accepted for
indexing by Thomson Reuters and are on course to receive their first Impact
Factors. We are delighted that these
journals have been selected for indexing, joining the many other journals in the
BMC series to have an Impact Factor.
BMC Endocrine Disorders has been tracked from publications in 2009 and is due to receive its first Impact Factor in 2012. A recent blog post discusses one of the special thematic collections in BMC Ecology, which has likely contributed to the increased visibility and recognition of the journal.
This is great news too for BMC Biophysics, considering it is less than a year since the journal re-launched on the BioMed Central platform. Since re-launch the journal has recruited a new Editorial Board consisting of world-renowned experts in the field.
In 2011 we
published many interesting articles, including one from our
Section Editor, Gerhard Gompper, which is an important theoretical contribution
to the field. In it, the authors
introduce and analyze a
discrete filament-motor protein model of subcellular microtubule self-assembly
in fission yeast, which demonstrates spontaneous generation of a number of
steady states, including spindles, nematics, and asters. We think this study
highlights the power and flexibility of online open access publishing in
biophysics, as the authors were able to directly link the article’s text to
their video figures. View their hypnotic animations of microtubule vortices here. 
The journal has already had a strong start to 2012 by publishing an exciting article by Qin et al. describing the structural determination of the EphA4 ligand binding domain, providing the first experimental and computational evidence that intrinsic dynamics are most likely to be responsible for the observed high conformational diversity that mediates binding affinity and specificity. An accompanying commentary by Ruth Nussinov and Buyong Ma in our flagship biology journal BMC Biology says: “These snapshots of multiple conformations of the free EphA4 LDB provide a unique insight into the conformational dynamics of EphA4 and the Eph-ephrin signaling pathways.”
After such a great start we are looking forward to what 2012 has in store for these journals and would invite you to submit your next research article to BMC Biophysics, BMC Ecology and BMC Endocrine Disorders.
Shane Canning
Journal Development Editor
Simon Harold
Executive Editor
Posted by Shane Canning at 12:36 Comments (0)
Norwegian attacks July 2011: The emergency medical service response report
The two horrific attacks on 22nd July 2011 of the car bombing at the Government district in Oslo, and the shooting of participants at a national Labour Party youth camp on nearby Utøya island, saw one of the worst massacres Norway has faced. The devastating actions of a single perpetrator left a total of 77 people dead, and a nation questioning the motives of such actions. The scale of these two attacks was unprecedented in Norway, and understandably required an enormous amount of effort and resources from the police and emergency medical service (EMS). Six months on, a study describing the immediate prehospital EMS response to these incidents and a corresponding commentary by Prof David Lockey have been published in Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine.
The Norwegian study objectively describes the two events separately, giving details of emergency medical service response times to the scene, triage procedures and scene descriptions. Co-author Dr Stephen Sollid, Consultant Anaesthesiologist at Oslo University Hospital, and Medical Advisor at the Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation explained,
“It was quite impressive to experience the way personnel from different systems were able to establish a working casualty clearing system. This was probably in the spirit of everyone pulling their weight under the given circumstances, but it is an experience that will certainly stay with those of us that took part in the rescue work that day and should inspire - at least - other EMS systems in Norway”.
In the initial analysis following the attacks, the police were criticized for their response time to Utøya island, and the transport issues faced with lack of helicopters and boats. The Norwegian air ambulance service were able to provide sufficient support for the pre-hospital medical services, and with approximately 60 flights logged, it is clear that availability of these resources is paramount for emergency incidences.
The report will allow other EMS services to analyse and provide improved emergency responses to future incidents. Unfortunately it is near impossible to predict when such attacks will next occur, and a state of preparedness is all that is possible.
Posted by Shivani Patel at 15:27 Comments (0)
Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer affecting women in the UK, and 6,500 women are diagnosed every year. Cisplatin is commonly used to treat ovarian cancer, but it is associated with side effects in some people, and some types of this cancer are resistant to cisplatin treatment. There is thus a pressing need for the development of new drugs that are effective against ovarian cancer in people who are less responsive to cisplatin.
The novel anti-cancer drug Diindolylmethane (DIM) has previously been shown to prevent the growth of ovarian cancer cells, without affecting normal cells. In a new study published by BMC Medicine, Kandala and Srivastava shed light on the mechanism by which DIM affects ovarian cancer cells. The authors show that DIM works by blocking production of the transcription factor STAT3, whose normal role is in cell growth and division. STAT3 is present at abnormally high levels in many types of cancer, and has been implicated in cisplatin resistance. They found that DIM blocks STAT3 activation by the immune system messenger interleukin 6 (IL-6), and also reduces the amount of IL-6 in ovarian cancer cells.
Importantly, Kandala and Srivastava also showed that DIM enhanced the anti-cancer effects of cisplatin in both human ovarian cancer cells and in mice, where a combination of both drugs reduced tumour growth by an extra 50% compared with cisplatin alone. DIM is an exciting potential future therapy for ovarian cancer, which could overcome the problems with cisplatin resistance in some women.
Posted by Claire Tree-Booker at 10:10 Comments (0)
Gut Pathogens making a positive impact in 2012
The year has started positively for Gut Pathogens with the news that the journal will receive its first Impact Factor in June 2012. Gut Pathogens is aiming to be ranked in the first quartile of Gastroenterology and Hepatology journals.
Gut Pathogens, an internationally recognized journal, boasts an Editorial Board consisting of leading researchers from around the world. A key factor in the journal’s success has been its commitment to publishing articles that are topical and relevant to researchers in this field. In particular, Gut Pathogens has consistently published highly popular articles on probiotics, and is becoming a key journal for researchers in the field to submit their research. The journal will continue to publish high quality articles on probiotics in the future. (Image credit: Probiotic Lactobacillus salivarius. Sleator, Gut Pathogens 2010 2:5)
There has been an increasing interest in pathogens such as Clostridium difficile, E. coli and Salmonella because of the significant emerging health problems they are causing in western countries. Gut Pathogens would like to invite scientists to submit their research on these and similar themes to the journal for publication in 2012.
Posted by Srimathy Sriskantharajah at 15:54 Comments (0)
Global lipid profiling provides clues to schizophrenia pathogenesis
Recent research published in Genome Medicine presents a comprehensive, global view of lipid abnormalities associated with schizophrenia, providing new pathophysiological insights into the disorder.
Following on from their earlier work published in Genome Medicine, which reported metabolites that differentiate schizophrenia from related disorders, Matej Orešič and colleagues from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland used metabolomics (a high-throughput method for detecting small metabolites) to determine the lipid profile of people with schizophrenia. In psychiatric research, several theories have been proposed to explain how brain function may be altered by changes in lipid composition, and this study sought to understand which specific pathways are affected in schizophrenia.
The group analyzed the lipid content of serum samples taken from monozygotic twins that are discordant for schizophrenia i.e. only one twin in each pair is affected. The advantage of this unique study design is that discordant twins are an ideal population for investigating the contribution of genetic factors to disease etiology. Age and gender matched healthy twin pairs were included as controls, and neurocognitive and magnetic resonance image data were available for selected twins.
Compared with healthy controls, individuals with schizophrenia had higher triglyceride levels and showed signs of insulin resistance, in line with earlier reports. However, the patients’ unaffected co-twins were also found to be insulin resistant, providing new evidence that this could be an inherited trait associated with predisposition to schizophrenia. Affected twins also had lower levels of phospholipid derivatives called lysophosphatidylcholines (lysoPCs). This change, which was not observed in healthy co-twins or controls, correlated with decreased cognitive speed. Because lysoPCs are involved in blood-brain barrier transport of polyunsaturated fatty acids, the authors conclude that a drop in their levels may be responsible for changes in neurotransmission and weaker cognitive performance. They also propose that lysoPC deficiency could make schizophrenia patients more susceptible to infections. These findings pave the way for further research into the role of lysoPCs in schizophrenia.
The mechanistic insights reported by Orešič and colleagues may be useful for the discovery of new drug targets for schizophrenia. In addition, the work demonstrates how a discordant twin study design can successfully uncouple genetic and environmental factors, allowing disease-specific inherited traits to be accurately defined.
Posted by Paraminder Dhillon at 13:49 Comments (0)
“Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine's immediate goal is to provide scientists and physicians with responsible and balanced information in order to improve experimental designs and clinical decisions”, comments Prof Bjorn Olsen, Editor-in-Chief of this journal.
The importance and usefulness of negative results is something that is arguably overlooked in the scientific arena; they are often perceived as less important due to the fact that they fail to confirm various hypotheses. This view however is gradually changing, with a growing awareness of how constructive and useful they can actually be to science.
Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine promotes the publication of negative results and data, and supports the idea that scientists should be provided with balanced information which can offer a more complete scientific record, thereby reducing the risk of publication bias or later rebuttal of research. Prof Olsen and JNRBM co-founder, Dr Christian Pfeffer, also strongly believe that “such "negative" observations and conclusions, based on rigorous experimentation and thorough documentation, ought to be published in order to be discussed, confirmed or refuted by others”.
Perhaps in reflection of this rising awareness of the importance of publishing negative results, 2011 saw an increase in submissions to JNRBM, leading to the recruitment of a number of Associate Editors to provide their scientific expertise to assist with the peer-review process. The Associate Editor model is a strategy which Biomed Central successfully introduced in 2008 in order to improve speed and quality of peer-review on its BMC series journals. The hope is that adopting a similar model for JNRBM will lead not only to a more efficient peer-review process, but also an improved capacity to publish even more of this incredibly valuable research.
To submit your manuscript documenting negative data or results, please click here. If you are interested in writing a Commentary article about your views on negative results, please email bjorn_olsen@hms.harvard.edu to discuss your proposal.
Posted by Gabriella Anderson at 17:39 Comments (0)
Ian Dixon appointed cardiovascular section editor for Fibrogenesis & Tissue Repair
Fibrogenesis & Tissue Repair welcomes Professor Ian Dixon as a new Section Editor for Cardiovascular Diseases. Ian will join the four current Section Editors in helping to promote the journal and will oversee some of the journal's peer review processes.
Ian
is a Professor
of Physiology at the University
of Manitoba, and Principal Investigator of Molecular Cardiology at the Institute of Cardiovascular
Sciences, St. Boniface Research Centre.
Massimo Pinzani, the journal’s Editor-in-Chief has said “It is with great pleasure that I announce, on behalf of all Section Editors of Fibrogenesis & Tissue Repair, the recruitment of Professor Ian Dixon as new Section Editor for Cardiovascular Diseases. Prof. Dixon is an established investigator in the area of molecular cardiology with a specific interest in cardiac fibrosis. The work carried out by Ian and his co-workers has opened new avenues in the understanding of the signaling pathways responsible for the occurrence of cardiac fibrosis in the development of pathological cardiac hypertrophy and overt congestive heart failure. I am very confident that Ian Dixon will greatly contribute to the development of Fibrogenesis & Tissue Repair in this specific area of medicine and will be able to attract a consistent number of excellent research and review articles for the journal”.
Visit the website to find out more about Fibrogenesis & Tissue Repair and read the latest published article, a letter to the Editor by Irina G Luzina and Sergei P Atamas - "CCR6 is not necessary for functional effects of human CCL18 in a mouse model".
Posted by Laura Winton at 16:24 Comments (0)
Therapy for Alzheimer's disease may cause side effects
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) affects an increasing number of people and research continues to develop new treatments, many of which are currently undergoing clinical trials. However, new research suggests that one such treatment using drugs to inhibit BACE1 may cause unwanted side effects.
Robert Vassar, lead author of the study recently published in Molecular Neurodegeneration, says “We are in desperate need of something that can treat or prevent Alzheimer’s disease, but at the same time we have to be on the lookout”. Vassar’s recent study is the first to identify a role of BACE1 in axon guidance, or the process by which axons connect and ensure communication between neurons. Defects result when the process of connecting axons goes awry.
Simply put, such defects in brain wiring can be likened to defects in the wiring of a house. “You have to wire correctly in order to get electricity into the house to turn on the lights, but if the wiring is not correct the lights won’t function,” Vassar said. “In humans, the brain automatically accomplishes correct wiring through axon guidance.”
However, BACE1 inhibitors may impede this normal process as evidenced by the researchers’ discovery of wiring mistakes in the brains of animal models. By using the olfactory system as a model of axon guidance, the researchers showed that when BACE1 is genetically removed from mice, axons of olfactory sensory neurons were not able to wire properly to the olfactory bulb of the brain. Such findings demonstrate the role of BACE1 in axon guidance, and how inhibiting BACE1 “could cause unwanted side effects or defects in the wiring of the brain or peripheral nervous system.”
While researchers speculate that there may be other neuron systems that require the activity of BACE1 for proper wiring, understanding the molecular basis of new physiological functions for BACE1 may eventually aid in the development of therapies with workarounds for side effects.
Posted by Sian Jones at 12:32 Comments (0)
PCE exposure in early life may affect mental health in later life
Whilst the adverse effects of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and other solvents on mental health are well documented in exposed adults, there are limited data linking early-life exposure to mental health issues later in life. In the present study, published in Environmental Health, Ann Aschengrau and colleagues show that early-life exposure to PCE-contaminated drinking water is associated with a greater risk of developing both bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
From the late 1960s to early 1980, public water companies in the Cape Cod region of Massachusetts, USA, installed vinyl-lined (VL) asbestos-cement (AC) water pipes to help combat alkalinity problems. More than a decade passed before the authorities became aware that PCE was leaching from these pipes into drinking water, with levels of PCE ranging from 1.5 to 7,750 μg/L. Today, the maximum contaminant level for PCE is set at 5 μg/L.
The problem had stemmed from the way the VL/AC pipes were manufactured. The liner was applied by spraying a mixture of vinyl resin and PCE onto the inner pipe surface, and given 48 hours to dry. It was assumed that this would allow sufficient time for the PCE to evaporate. However, large quantities of PCE had remained in the liner of the approximately 660 miles of VL/AC pipes in Massachusetts, and was leaching into public drinking water supplies.
To assess how drinking PCE-contaminated water in early life might have affected the mental health of adults in subsequent years, Aschengrau and colleagues studied a total of 1,512 subjects born between 1969 and 1983, including 831 subjects with both prenatal and early childhood PCE exposure, and 547 unexposed subjects. Questionnaires were used to gather information on mental illnesses, demographic and medical characteristics, other sources of solvent exposure, and residences from birth until 1990. Water distribution system modeling software that incorporated a leaching and transport algorithm was used to quantify PCE exposure originating from VL/AC pipes.
The authors found elevated risks of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder that increased further for the highest exposures in individuals with early-life exposure to PCE. Conversely, exposed subjects were not at increased risk of developing depression.
Aschengrau emphasizes the importance of replicating these findings in other studies before any firm conclusions can be drawn: “Because this is the first study to examine the risk of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder following early life exposure to PCE, its results must be corroborated among other similarly exposed populations.”
The same authors also recently published a study in which they found that risky behaviors, especially drug use, are more frequent among adults with high PCE exposure levels during early life. Given that PCE remains a common contaminant of drinking water supplies it is important that further studies are performed to shed more light on the impact of early-life PCE exposure on the health of vulnerable populations.
Posted by Ian Ward at 11:12 Comments (0)
Citing and linking data to publications: more journals, more examples...more impact?
Since BioMed Central introduced additional data sharing resources for authors and editors last year, there have been a number of further developments in the field that have necessitated an update to our supporting data information.
Eight further journals, including Retrovirology, Cell & Bioscience, and Frontiers in Zoology have introduced the ‘Availability of supporting data’ section to either encourage or require all authors to consistently link their supporting data to their publication, or clearly indicate supporting data are included within the article and its additional files. As articles submitted after the introduction of these policies have begun to be published we now have a growing number of examples, from a variety of biomedical domains.
In BMC Research Notes, which was amongst the first journals to introduce this article section, Schulz et al. have included their programming script within the additional files of their article, which describes a software tool for automated assessment of cardiopulmonary resuscitation skills.
Anderson and Elizur, in their study of hepatic reference genes in female Atlantic salmon also in BMC Research Notes, have deposited all their supporting data in the PANGAEA repository for adult and juvenile samples they collected. PANGAEA specializes in publishing geo-referenced data for earth and environmental sciences and helps to ensure permanence and citation of data by assigning digital object identifiers (DOIs) issued by DataCite.
It’s particularly pertinent to see links to PANGAEA from BMC Research Notes, having just returned from the EuroMarine workshop on Scientific Data Integration in Bremen, which focused on linking scientific data to journal publications. At the workshop session chair Dr. Michael Diepenbroek, who heads-up PANGAEA's systems development, alerted attendees, which included publishers, editors, researchers and software developers, to a new study of the impact of sharing data underlying publications.
The study – an abstract presented at the American Geophysical Union 2011 meeting – reported a 35% increase in citations to articles published in the journal Paleoceanography, when supporting data were freely available. Of 1,331 articles sampled over the 18-year study period, the 171 articles with publicly-available data received nearly 20% (8,056) of the aggregate citations.
Similarly, a study deposited in the ArXiv pre-print repository in November 2011 and distributed on Connotea also found citation rates in the astronomy field were higher for articles with links to supporting data.
These studies are, of course, limited to specific fields or journals – and those yet to be published in journals will likely be subject to further peer review – but providing evidence of the benefits of data sharing for individual researchers and research groups is undoubtedly important. We already know that sharing detailed microarray data is associated with increased citations to the papers reporting the results and that there are many benefits of data sharing for society as a whole but a common barrier to data sharing is lack of credit and incentives for individuals. The possibility of increased research impact may provide further motivation to those producing but not necessarily reusing data. Another desirable development is for citations to datasets assigned DOIs or equivalent persistent identifiers to contribute to measures of researcher impact, as is established for citations to journal articles and measured by a number of common tools, such as Web of Science.
As well increasing links between articles and data, another aim of the ‘Availability of supporting data’ section is help address this issue – to increase academic credit for data sharing by encouraging data citation. This month we have made data citation even more strongly encouraged with an update to BioMed Central’s reference style guide, found in any journal's instructions for authors. It now explicitly mentions datasets and provides an example of a dataset citation.
“Only articles, datasets and abstracts that have been published or are in press, or are available through public e-print/preprint servers, may be cited
...
“Dataset with persistent identifier
Zheng, L-Y; Guo, X-S; He, B; Sun, L-J; Peng, Y; Dong, S-S; Liu, T-F; Jiang, S; Ramachandran, S; Liu, C-M; Jing, H-C (2011): Genome data from sweet and grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor). GigaScience. http://dx.doi.org/10.5524/100012."
Data citation is recommended according to the standards proposed by DataCite, where persistent identifiers are displayed as linkable, permanent URLs. Finally, the ‘Availability of supporting data’ resources page has been updated with more information on citing and linking to data, in particular a link to a comprehensive guide from the Digital Curation Centre.
Posted by Iain Hrynaszkiewicz at 14:04 Comments (0)
Emergency medicine specialists convene in London
This week, BMC Medicine attended the 4th Annual Emergency Medicine conference in London, where key themes and hot topics in the field of emergency medicine were discussed. The meeting was attended by around 70 delegates, including consultants in emergency and acute medicine, paramedics, and specialists in trauma and orthopedics.
The presentations were thematically diverse and covered all aspects of emergency medicine. Popular topics included simulation training in a pre-hospital environment, as well as recognition and clinical management of novel recreational drugs - the so called ‘legal-highs’.
Changes afoot in terms of ambulance commissioning in the UK were debated, with an excellent presentation by Neil Kennett-Brown, the director of London Ambulance Service Commissioning, who discussed the background to these changes in care pathways, which aim to increase emergency department efficiency.
Of particular interest given the forthcoming Olympics in London was a session focused on sports medicine, led by Laurence Gant who is a Consultant and Clinical Director in Emergency Medicine at Homerton Hospital. Dr Gant, who is involved in the planning of medical care for athletes and spectators for the London Olympics, highlighted the challenges and solutions in organizing a large scale international event. Mike Carmont, a consultant trauma and orthopedic surgeon, discussed emergency assessment of sports injuries, and Jonathan Hanson provided an in-depth presentation on the causes, management and prevention of sudden cardiac arrest in athletes.
The core themes discussed at this conference will provide researchers and clinicians with deeper background knowledge and practical skills to advance the field of emergency medicine.
Posted by Lin Lee at 16:33 Comments (0)
Bacterial symbionts – the key to fighting pests and diseases?
Arthropods such as insects can be devastatingly efficient pests and disease vectors, posing significant challenges to the agricultural and medical communities. Pesticides used to be a common solution to dealing with pests but, with more stringent environmental regulations on pesticides and increasing pest resistance to the chemicals, new solutions are required.
Many arthropods have evolved a symbiotic relationship with bacteria and this association could potentially be exploited to control pests and disease vectors. This biological control approach, called symbiont-based control strategies, would be preferable to chemical controls due to their lower environmental impact.
In order to exploit the arthropod- bacterial symbiosis, more knowledge of the relationship is required. BMC Microbiology has published a supplement – Arthropod symbiosis: from fundamental studies to pest and disease management consisting of the latest interdisciplinary research in this field. The articles in the supplement look at bacterial symbiosis with pests such as the Anopheles mosquito that spreads malaria, tsetse fly that spreads sleeping sickness and the cereal weevil that devastates cereal crops.
Currently in their initial stages of development, symbiont-based control strategies have the potential to increase global health and food resources by removing arthropod disease vectors and agricultural pests.
Posted by Srimathy Sriskantharajah at 15:12 Comments (0)
New database for surgical trials
“Randomised control trials (RCTs) have played a role in the assessment of surgical innovations and there is scope and need for greater use”. While common in other areas of medical research, RCTs are often under used in evaluating surgical interventions due to the practical and methodological issues they present researchers.
By far one of the most vexing issues that RCTs throw up is the so called 'clustering effect'. The experience, training and level of practice possessed by a surgeon means multiple patients operated on by the same surgeon often experience similar outcomes to their procedures. This phenomenon, known as 'clustering', can lead to a loss of precision when evaluating the results of RCTs and means that researchers must be extremely careful when choosing the sample size of their studies.
A new study published in Trials describes the creation of a database of previous surgical trials to quantify clustering effects at both institution and surgeon levels. Calculating the intracluster correlation coefficiencies (ICCs) in 10 multicenter surgical trials for a possible 108 outcomes, the authors found evidence for a clustering effect in a large number of possible outcomes. Lead investigator and Editorial Board member of Trials Jonathan Cook noted, "Our data on clustering effect for multicentre trials of surgical interventions suggests it is more of an issue than has previously been acknowledged."
At the moment researchers have a shortage of data on which to assess the impact of clustering. This inability to judge the level of clustering present in RTCs makes it difficult for researchers to adjust their trial designs to compensate for any loss of precision. The authors hope that by adding datasets from future surgical trials to the database, researchers will one day be able to access a valuable resource that will help to inform and improve the design of surgical trials.
Posted by Jack Cochrane at 15:56 Comments (0)