TrialPanorama/TrialPanorama-benchmark huggingface dataset:
Background: Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is the sodium salt of the non-essential amino acid, glutamic acid, and is used as a flavour enhancer. It has been implicated in causing adverse reactions, which have been referred to as "Chinese restaurant syndrome". Over the last two decades there have been a number of studies investigating whether MSG ingestion induces an asthmatic response, and several reviews have been published (ILSI 1991; Stevenson 2000; Woods 2001), but no meta-analysis or Cochrane systematic review has been performed.
Objectives: The objectives of this review are to: 1) identify randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of MSG ingestion and asthma response in adults and children older than two years of age with asthma; 2) assess the methodological quality of these trials; and 3) determine the effect of MSG ingestion on asthma outcomes.
Selection criteria: We included RCTs that investigated the effect of MSG on chronic asthma in adults and children.
Background: A variety of antifungal drugs, drug preparations and drug combinations are available to treat newborn infants with suspected or confirmed invasive fungal infection. There is a need to assess their relative merits.
Objectives: To assess the effect of treatment with different antifungal drugs, drug preparations or drug combinations on mortality and morbidity in newborn infants with suspected or confirmed invasive fungal infection.
Selection criteria: Randomised and quasi-randomised control trials comparing one antifungal agent or combination of agents with another in newborn infants with suspected or confirmed invasive fungal infection.
Background: The outcome of glaucoma surgery can be affected by the rate at which the surgical wound heals. Beta radiation has been proposed as a rapid and simple treatment to slow down the healing response.
Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of beta radiation during glaucoma surgery (trabeculectomy).
Selection criteria: We included randomised controlled trials comparing trabeculectomy with beta radiation to trabeculectomy without beta radiation.
Background: Suspected fetal distress usually results in expedited delivery of a baby (often operatively). The potential harm to a mother and baby from operative delivery may not always be justified especially when fetal distress may be misdiagnosed. Even with a correct diagnosis it is not clear whether an operative or conservative approach is better.
Objectives: The objective of this review was to assess the effects of operative management for fetal distress on maternal and perinatal morbidity.
Selection criteria: Randomised trials of operative (caesarean section or expedited vaginal delivery) versus conservative management of suspected fetal distress.
Background: Piracetam is thought to promote the metabolism of brain cells when they are hypoxic. It has been used to prevent adverse effects of fetal distress.
Objectives: The objective of this review was to assess the effects of piracetam for suspected fetal distress in labour on method of delivery and perinatal morbidity.
Selection criteria: Randomised trials of piracetam compared with placebo or no treatment for suspected fetal distress in labour.
Background: Abdominal decompression was developed as a means of pain relief during labour. It has also been used for complications of pregnancy, and in healthy pregnant women in an attempt to improve fetal wellbeing and intellectual development.
Objectives: The objective of this review was to assess the effects of prophylactic abdominal decompression on pregnancy outcomes such as admission for pre-eclampsia, fetal growth, perinatal morbidity and mortality and childhood development.
Selection criteria: Randomised trials comparing abdominal decompression with dummy decompression or no treatment in healthy pregnant women.
Background: Isolated fractures of the shaft of the ulna, which are often sustained when the forearm is raised to shield against a blow, are generally treated on an outpatient basis. This is an update of a Cochrane review first published in 1998 and last updated in 2009.
Objectives: To assess the effects of various forms of treatment for isolated fractures of the ulnar shaft in adults.
Selection criteria: Randomised or quasi-randomised trials of conservative and surgical treatment of isolated fractures of the ulnar shaft in adults. Excluded were fractures of the proximal ulna and Monteggia fracture dislocations.
Background: Audit and feedback is widely used as a strategy to improve professional practice either on its own or as a component of multifaceted quality improvement interventions. This is based on the belief that healthcare professionals are prompted to modify their practice when given performance feedback showing that their clinical practice is inconsistent with a desirable target. Despite its prevalence as a quality improvement strategy, there remains uncertainty regarding both the effectiveness of audit and feedback in improving healthcare practice and the characteristics of audit and feedback that lead to greater impact.
Objectives: To assess the effects of audit and feedback on the practice of healthcare professionals and patient outcomes and to examine factors that may explain variation in the effectiveness of audit and feedback.
Selection criteria: Randomised trials of audit and feedback (defined as a summary of clinical performance over a specified period of time) that reported objectively measured health professional practice or patient outcomes. In the case of multifaceted interventions, only trials in which audit and feedback was considered the core, essential aspect of at least one intervention arm were included.
Background: Abdominal decompression was developed as a means of pain relief during labour. It has also been used for complications of pregnancy, and in healthy pregnant women in an attempt to improve fetal wellbeing and intellectual development.
Objectives: The objective of this review was to assess the effects of antenatal abdominal decompression for maternal hypertension or impaired fetal growth, on perinatal outcome.
Selection criteria: Randomised or quasi-randomised trials comparing abdominal decompression with no decompression in women with pre-eclampsia and/or fetuses thought to be compromised.
Background: The role and timing of endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) in acute gallstone pancreatitis remains controversial. A number of clinical trials and meta-analyses have provided conflicting evidence.
Objectives: To systematically review evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing the clinical effectiveness and safety of the early routine ERCP strategy compared to the early conservative management with or without selective use of ERCP strategy, based on all important, clinically relevant and standardized outcomes including mortality, local and systemic complications as defined by the Atlanta Classification (Bradley 1993) and by authors of the primary study, and ERCP-related complications in unselected patients with acute gallstone pancreatitis.
Selection criteria: RCTs comparing the early routine ERCP strategy versus the early conservative management with or without selective use of ERCP strategy in patients with suspected acute gallstone pancreatitis. We included studies in which the population with acute gallstone pancreatitis was a subgroup within a larger group of patients. We only included studies involving only a selected subgroup of patients with acute gallstone pancreatitis (actual severe pancreatitis) in subgroup analyses.
Background: Inspiratory muscle weakness has been observed in patients with stroke. Inspiratory muscle training is an intervention that has shown possible effects for functional recovery of patients with stroke.
Objectives: To investigate the effect and safety of inspiratory muscle training for improving activities of daily living, respiratory muscle function, quality of life and cardiorespiratory fitness after stroke.
Selection criteria: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing inspiratory muscle training with no intervention, sham inspiratory muscle training or other cardiorespiratory training for patients with stroke were eligible.
Background: Dysmenorrhoea is a common gynaecological complaint that can affect as many as 50% of premenopausal women, 10% of whom suffer severely enough to be rendered incapacitated for one to three days during each menstrual cycle. Primary dysmenorrhoea is where women suffer from menstrual pain but lack any pathology in their pelvic anatomy. Beta2-adrenoceptor agonists have been used in the treatment of women with primary dysmenorrhoea but their effects are unclear.
Objectives: To determine the effectiveness and safety of beta2-adrenoceptor agonists in the treatment of primary dysmenorrhoea.
Selection criteria: Randomised controlled trials comparing beta2-adrenoceptor agonists with placebo or no treatment, each other or any other conventional treatment in women of reproductive age with primary dysmenorrhoea.
Background: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a genetic disease with an autosomal-dominant inheritance for which negative inotropes are the most widely used initial therapies. Observational studies and small randomised trials have suggested symptomatic and functional benefits using pacing and several theories have been put forward to explain why. Pacing, although not the primary treatment for HCM, could be beneficial to patients with relative or absolute contraindications to surgery or alcohol ablation. Several randomised controlled trials comparing pacing to other therapeutic modalities have been conducted but no Cochrane-style systematic review has been done.
Objectives: To assess the effects of pacing in drug-refractory or drug-intolerant hypertrophic cardiomyopathy patients.
Selection criteria: Randomised controlled trials of either parallel or crossover design that assess the beneficial and harmful effects of pacing for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy were included. When crossover studies were identified, we considered data only from the first phase.
Background: Threatened miscarriage occurs in 10% to 15% of all pregnancies. Vaginal spotting or bleeding during early gestation is common, with nearly half of those pregnancies resulting in pregnancy loss. To date, there is no effective preventive treatment for threatened miscarriage. Chinese herbal medicines have been widely used in Asian countries for centuries and have become a popular alternative to Western medicines in recent years. Many studies claim to show that they can prevent miscarriage. However, there has been no systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of Chinese herbal medicines for threatened miscarriage.
Objectives: To review the therapeutic effects of Chinese herbal medicines for the treatment of threatened miscarriage.
Selection criteria: Randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials that compared Chinese herbal medicines (alone or combined with other pharmaceuticals) with placebo, no treatment (including bed rest), or other pharmaceuticals as treatments for threatened miscarriage.
Background: Weight loss and muscle wasting are commonly found in patients with end-stage liver disease. Since there is an association between malnutrition and poor clinical outcome, such patients (or those at risk of becoming malnourished) are often given parenteral nutrition, enteral nutrition, or oral nutritional supplements. These interventions have costs and adverse effects, so it is important to prove that their use results in improved morbidity or mortality, or both.
Objectives: To assess the beneficial and harmful effects of parenteral nutrition, enteral nutrition, and oral nutritional supplements on the mortality and morbidity of patients with underlying liver disease.
Selection criteria: Randomised clinical trials (parallel or cross-over design) comparing groups of patients with any underlying liver disease who received, or did not receive, enteral or parenteral nutrition or oral nutritional supplements were identified without restriction on date, language, or publication status. Six categories of trials were separately considered: medical or surgical patients receiving parenteral nutrition, enteral nutrition, or supplements.
Background: Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a common neurologic syndrome and is associated with iron deficiency in many patients. It is unclear whether iron therapy is effective treatment for RLS.
Objectives: The objective of this review was to assess the effects of iron supplementation (oral or intravenous) for patients with RLS.
Selection criteria: Controlled trials comparing any formulation of iron with placebo, other medications, or no treatment in adults diagnosed with RLS according to expert clinical interview or explicit diagnostic criteria.
Background: This is an updated version of the original Cochrane review first published in Issue 4, 2009. There is an ongoing debate about the indications for, and value of, adjuvant pelvic radiotherapy after radical surgery in women with early cervical cancer. Certain combinations of pathological risk factors are thought to represent sufficient risk for recurrence, that they justify the use of postoperative pelvic radiotherapy, though this has never been shown to improve overall survival, and use of more than one type of treatment (surgery and radiotherapy) increases the risks of side effects and complications.
Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of adjuvant therapies (radiotherapy, chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy, chemoradiation) after radical hysterectomy for early-stage cervical cancer (FIGO stages IB1, IB2 or IIA).
Selection criteria: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that compared adjuvant therapies (radiotherapy, chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy, or chemoradiation) with no radiotherapy or chemoradiation, in women with a confirmed histological diagnosis of early cervical cancer who had undergone radical hysterectomy and dissection of the pelvic lymph nodes.
Background: Blood loss during liver resection is considered one of the most important factors affecting the peri-operative outcomes of patients undergoing liver resection.
Objectives: To determine the benefits and harms of cardiopulmonary interventions to decrease blood loss and to decrease allogeneic blood transfusion requirements in patients undergoing liver resections.
Selection criteria: We included all randomised clinical trials comparing various cardiopulmonary interventions aimed at decreasing blood loss and allogeneic blood transfusion requirements in patients undergoing liver resection. Trials were included irrespective of whether they included major or minor liver resections of normal or cirrhotic livers, vascular occlusion was used or not, and irrespective of the reason for liver resection.
Background: Fatigue is reported to occur in up to 92% of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and has been described as the most debilitating of all MS symptoms by 28% to 40% of MS patients.
Objectives: To assess whether carnitine (enteral or intravenous) supplementation can improve the quality of life and reduce the symptoms of fatigue in patients with MS-related fatigue and to identify any adverse effects of carnitine when used for this purpose.
Selection criteria: Full reports of published and unpublished randomized controlled trials and quasi-randomized trials of any carnitine intervention in adults affected by multiple sclerosis with a clinical diagnosis of fatigue associated with multiple sclerosis were included.
Background: Graduated compression stockings (GCS) are a valuable means of thromboprophylaxis in hospitalised postoperative surgical patients. But it is still unclear whether knee length graduated compression stockings (KL) or thigh length (TL) stockings are more effective.
Objectives: The aim of this review was to systematically analyse the randomised, controlled trials that have evaluated the effectiveness of KL versus TL GCS as a thromboprophylaxis tool in hospitalised patients undergoing various types of surgery.
Selection criteria: Randomised controlled trials published in any language on KL versus TL GCS used as a thromboprophylaxis tool in hospitalised patients of any age and either gender.
Background: With an increased focus on home-based stroke services and the undertaking of programmes, targeted at upper limb recovery within clinical practice, a systematic review of home-based therapy programmes for individuals with upper limb impairment following stroke was required.
Objectives: To determine the effects of home-based therapy programmes for upper limb recovery in patients with upper limb impairment following stroke.
Selection criteria: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in adults after stroke, where the intervention was a home-based therapy programme targeted at the upper limb, compared with placebo, or no intervention or usual care. PRIMARY OUTCOMES were performance in activities of daily living (ADL) and functional movement of the upper limb. SECONDARY OUTCOMES were performance in extended ADL and motor impairment of the arm.
Background: Non-adherence to tuberculosis treatment can lead to prolonged periods of infectiousness, relapse, emergence of drug-resistance, and increased morbidity and mortality. In this review, we assess whether patient education or counselling, or both, promotes adherence to tuberculosis treatment.
Objectives: To evaluate the effects of patient education or counselling, or both, on treatment completion and cure in people requiring treatment for active or latent tuberculosis.
Selection criteria: Randomized controlled trials examining the effects of education or counselling, or both, on treatment completion and cure in people with clinical tuberculosis; and treatment completion and clinical tuberculosis in people with latent disease.
Background: Acute asthma presentation in the emergency setting frequently leads to hospital admission. Currently available treatment options include corticosteroid therapy, beta(2)-agonists and oxygen. Antileukotriene agents are beneficial in chronic asthma as additional therapy to inhaled steroids. Their value when used orally or intravenously in the acute setting requires evaluation.
Objectives: To determine if the addition of a leukotriene receptor antagonist (LTRA) produces a beneficial effect in children and adults with acute asthma who are currently receiving inhaled bronchodilators and systemic corticosteroids.
Selection criteria: We included randomised trials comparing antileukotrienes and standard acute asthma care versus placebo and standard care in people with acute asthma of any age. We considered any dose and method of delivery of the leukotriene agent.
Background: Ureteral stones frequently cause renal colic, and if left untreated, can lead to obstructive uropathy. Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) and ureteroscopy, with or without intracorporeal lithotripsy, are the most common interventions used to treat ureteral stones. ESWL treatment is less invasive than ureteroscopy, but has some limitations such as a high retreatment rate, and is not available in all centres. Recent advances in ureteroscopy have increased success rates and reduced complication rates.
Objectives: To examine evidence from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) on the outcomes of ESWL or ureteroscopy in the treatment of ureteric calculi.
Selection criteria: RCTs that compared ESWL with ureteroscopic retrieval of ureteric stones were included in this review. Study participants were adults with ureteric stones requiring intervention. Published and unpublished sources were considered for inclusion.
Background: Blepharitis, an inflammatory condition associated with itchiness, redness, flaking, and crusting of the eyelids, is a common eye condition that affects both children and adults. It is common in all ethnic groups and across all ages. Although infrequent, blepharitis can lead to permanent alterations to the eyelid margin or vision loss from superficial keratopathy (abnormality of the cornea), corneal neovascularization, and ulceration. Most importantly, blepharitis frequently causes significant ocular symptoms such as burning sensation, irritation, tearing, and red eyes as well as visual problems such as photophobia and blurred vision. The exact etiopathogenesis is unknown, but suspected to be multifactorial, including chronic low-grade infections of the ocular surface with bacteria, infestations with certain parasites such as demodex, and inflammatory skin conditions such as atopy and seborrhea. Blepharitis can be categorized in several different ways. First, categorization is based on the length of disease process: acute or chronic blepharitis. Second, categorization is based on the anatomical location of disease: anterior, or front of the eye (e.g. staphylococcal and seborrheic blepharitis), and posterior, or back of the eye (e.g. meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD)). This review focuses on chronic blepharitis and stratifies anterior and posterior blepharitis.
Objectives: To examine the effectiveness of interventions in the treatment of chronic blepharitis.
Selection criteria: We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-randomized controlled trials (CCTs) in which participants were adults aged 16 years or older and clinically diagnosed with chronic blepharitis. We also included trials where participants with chronic blepharitis were a subset of the participants included in the study and data were reported separately for these participants. Interventions within the scope of this review included medical treatment and lid hygiene measures.
Background: Decompression illness (DCI) is due to bubble formation in the blood or tissues following the breathing of compressed gas. Clinically, DCI may range from a trivial illness to loss of consciousness, death or paralysis. Recompression is the universally accepted standard treatment of DCI. When recompression is delayed, a number of strategies have been suggested in order to improve the outcome.
Objectives: To examine the effectiveness and safety of both recompression and adjunctive therapies in the treatment of DCI.
Selection criteria: We included randomized controlled trials that compared the effect of any recompression schedule or adjunctive therapy with a standard recompression schedule. We did not apply language restrictions.
Background: Non-oliguric hyperkalaemia of the newborn is defined as a plasma potassium level > 6.5 mmol/L in the absence of acute renal failure. Hyperkalaemia is a common complication in the first 48 hours of life in very low birth weight (VLBW) (birth weight < 1500 g) and/or very preterm newborns (≤32 weeks gestational age).
Objectives: To determine the effectiveness and safety of interventions for non-oliguric hyperkalaemia [for the purpose of this review defined as serum potassium > 6.0 mmol/L (the clinical setting in which interventions would likely be introduced prior to reaching a grossly abnormal level) and urine output > 0.5 ml/kg/hour] in preterm or VLBW infants during their first 72 hours of life.
Selection criteria: Randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials conducted in preterm and/or VLBW neonates with a diagnosis of non-oliguric hyperkalaemia. Interventions included were those aimed at redistributing serum potassium (sodium bicarbonate or insulin and glucose) or increasing the elimination of potassium from the body [diuretics (any type) or ion exchange resins (any type), or exchange transfusion, or peritoneal dialysis, or salbutamol, or albuterol] or counteracting potential arrhythmias from hyperkalaemia (calcium) versus placebo or no intervention; or comparing any two of these interventions. Primary outcome measure was 'All cause mortality during initial hospital stay'. Secondary outcomes included common adverse outcomes seen in preterm infants.