What's New

PaPaS News

Expect analgesic failure; pursue analgesic success

One of our Editors, Professor Andrew Moore, has now published, 'Expect analgesic failure; pursue analgesic success' (BMJ 2013;346:f2690) in the British Medical Journal. You can see the full article here.

'Most analgesic drugs work well but in only a small percentage of people. Andrew Moore and colleagues argue that we need to move away from a focus on average response and seek out what works for each patient.'

Cochrane Collaboration's 20th Anniversary

The Anniversary Public Relations Working Group has developed some key messages to provide support and context for materials you might be posting or publishing to help promote the Collaboration and our 20th Anniversary.

Please visit the Anniversary website for more information on our celebrations, including a series of short videos based around nearly a hundred interviews with Cochrane contributors from all over the world.

Quebec Colloquium 2013: Stipends application now open

The Consumer and Developing Country Stipends Committees are pleased to announce that stipends application is now open for the 21st Cochrane Colloquium, 19-23 Sep 2013, Québec City, Canada. A limited number of stipends to cover travel, accommodation and registration to attend the Colloquium are available for contributors to The Cochrane Collaboration who are consumers or residents of developing countries. Detailed information on criteria and how to apply can be found on http://colloquium.cochrane.org/colloquium-stipends.

Deadline for submitting applications is Thursday 16 May 2013.

For any queries please contact Juliane Ried at consumerstipends@cochrane.org or dcstipends@cochrane.org.

Evidently Cochrane: a blog

Our colleagues at the UK Cochrane Centre have created a blog, sharing and summarising the latest Cochrane reviews.

The blog entry Cognitive behavioural therapy can help people manage chronic pain summarises the review Psychological therapies for the management of chronic pain (excluding headache) in adults.

A second entry, Children living with pain may be helped by psychological therapies, summarises two more reviews, Psychological therapies for the management of chronic and recurrent pain in children and adolescents and Psychological therapies for the management of chronic pain (excluding headache) in adults.

Methodological Expectations of Cochrane Intervention Reviews (MECIR)

The new MECIR standards for conducting Cochrane reviews are now available. These standards should be used by authors to ensure that their protocols are of high quality before submitting them for editorial review by the group. Further information can be found on the Cochrane Editorial Unit website, and the MECIR document can be downloaded here.

For information about how this affects PaPaS authors and contributors directly, please contact Anna Hobson, Managing Editor, at anna.hobson@ndcn.ox.ac.uk.

'Faculty of 1000 Recommended'

PaPaS reviews are regularly recommended as being of special significance by the F1000 Faculty. F1000 Prime is an up-to-date directory of top biology and medicine articles, assessed and recommended by clinical experts. The written recommendations can be found here:

Derry S, Moore RA, Rabbie R. Topical NSAIDs for chronic musculoskeletal pain in adults. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2012, Issue 9. Art. No.: CD007400. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD007400.pub2. Faculty of 1000 Recommended

Derry S, Moore RA. Topical capsaicin (low concentration) for chronic neuropathic pain in adults. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2012, Issue 9. Art. No.: CD010111. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD010111. Faculty of 1000 Recommended

Moore RA, Derry S, Aldington D, Cole P, Wiffen PJ. Amitriptyline for neuropathic pain and fibromyalgia in adults. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2012, Issue 12. Art. No.: CD008242. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD008242.pub2. Faculty of 1000 Recommended

The following paper has also been recommended here:

Moore, R. A., Straube, S. and Aldington, D. (2013), Pain measures and cut-offs – ‘no worse than mild pain’ as a simple, universal outcome. Anaesthesia. doi: 10.1111/anae.12148. Faculty of 1000 Recommended

Trials Search Co-ordinator

We are pleased to welcome Joanne Abbott who is the new Trials Search Co-ordinator for PaPaS. You can contact Joanne at joanne.abbott@ndcn.ox.ac.uk with regards to developing and updating search strategies for PaPaS reviews.

PaPaS in the news

Our palliative editor, Professor Mike Bennett, has recently been talking about opioids and their use in palliative care. Take a look at the following links:

BBC News

NICE releases new pain relief guidelines Morphine and pain control

Telegraph

Patients left in great pain because doctors are unsure about using strong drugs, NICE warns

London Evening Standard

New advice on opium-based drugs

Yorkshire Evening Post

Opioids 'key in palliative care'

Other news

Your Health Net website launched

The Cochrane Consumers and Communication review group have been involved with a project to launch a website to help people be more actively engaged in healthcare decisions they make. Take a look: http://navigatingeffectivetreatments.org.au/. We've added a link to this website to our consumers, authors and referee information that we routinely send out.

Summary of Findings document

Please take a look at our 'Summary of Findings document', available under 'PaPaS documents'. This document was drawn up by our Editors to help authors write a Summary of Findings table and can be used alongside Chapter 11 of the Cochrane Handbook.

Single dose oral analgesics for acute postoperative pain in adults, an overview review

In September 2011, PaPaS sees the publication of its first overview of reviews. This overview brings together the results from 35 separate Cochrane reviews of single dose analgesics in acute postoperative pain, with 38 different drug or drug combinations, at various doses, tested in about 45,000 patients in 350 clinical trials.The primary outcome was number needed to treat for at least 50% of maximum pain relief over four to six hours, with secondary outcomes including the proportion of individuals achieving this level of response, and time to use of rescue medication. Comparisons were made with placebo, and results presented in rank order of efficacy, with further consideration given to the quantity of evidence and how confidant we can be in the results.This analgesic league table should help commissioners, prescribers and patients to make treatment decisions based on robust efficacy data together with local availability, and tailored to the individual patient according to need (e.g. long duration of action) and tolerability.

Please go to The Cochrane Library homepage to read the full review: www.thecochranelibrary.com/

The Cochrane Library Impact Factor for 2011

The 2011 Impact Factor has now been released and is 5.912 for The Cochrane Collaboration as a whole, and for the PaPaS review group itself it is 5.787 which makes us the highest impact pain journal in circulation!

Please visit the Cochrane Editorial Unit site for information on the Collaboration's 2011 impact factor.

PaPaS Author and Peer Referee Guidance

Please have a look at our new guidance to support our authors and referees in writing and assessing reviews. This document has undergone significant consultation and we expect authors to justify any diversions from the guidance. This document can be found on the following link or by going to the 'PaPaS documents' section of our website. PaPaS author and referee guidance. Have a read and let us know what you think.

Laxatives or methylnaltrexone for the management of constipation in palliative care patients

Take a look at one of our first Cochrane Journal Clubs: http://bit.ly/gpoG8c

The Cochrane Collaboration Annual report: how much The Cochrane Colloboration has done over the last couple of years

Take a look at The Cochrane Collaboration annual report:

www.cochrane.org/sites/default/files/uploads/Annual%20Report%202009-10_The%20Cochrane%20Collaboration.pdf

Monthly publications

Review groups are now publishing protocols and reviews in The Cochrane Library on a monthly basis. Deadlines for submitting drafts or completed reviews can be found in the 'Resources for review authors' section.

We are always on the look out for peer referees, consumers, handsearchers, translators and those interested in offering statistical and methodological support, if you’d be interested in this, do get in contact with Anna Hobson.

Please see our 'module text' on The Cochrane Library to see a list of our current published protocols, reviews and review updates as well as titles in progress and due for publication soon: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/o/cochrane/clabout/articles/SYMPT/frame.html

Publications

2012 publications

Acute