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Cochrane and the COMET initiative: developing the evidence base in oral medicine

British Dental Journal volume 223, pages729–732(2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Key Points

  • Discusses the importance of evidence-based practice and suggests ways to improve the evidence base in oral medicine.

  • Describes the history and development of the Cochrane Collaboration and Cochrane Oral Health.

  • Introduces the concept of core outcome sets and demonstrates an approach used to develop a core outcome set in oral medicine.

Abstract

All clinicians in medicine and dentistry aim to deliver evidence-based practice; however, it is widely recognised that the current evidence base for interventions in oral medicine, as with many other specialties, is of a low quality. The highest level of evidence is considered to be the systematic review and meta-analysis. The Cochrane Collaboration and the Cochrane Oral Health group produce high quality systematic reviews, however, despite the large number of trials carried out for treatments in oral medicine, the results are often not able to be utilised to guide clinical care due to the various methodological limitations of the trials including the heterogeneity of outcome measures used. To improve the strength of the evidence base this will need to change. The Comet initiative aims to support the development of core outcome sets which are used to allow homogeneity of outcome measures in trials and therefore will allow pooling of data for meta-analysis in future systematic reviews. This paper explores the complexities involved in producing evidence for oral medicine interventions and introduces an approach for developing core outcome sets in oral medicine.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Sasha Louise Worthington for her assistance in formatting the paper.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Oral Medicine Department, Glasgow Dental Hospital and School

    J. Taylor

  2. Division of Dentistry, School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, The University of Manchester, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Oxford Rd., Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom

    J. Taylor, T. Walsh, H. Worthington, M. N. Pemberton & A. M. Glenny

  3. NWORTH Clinical Trials Unit, Bangor, North Wales

    P. Brocklehurst

  4. Oral Medicine Department, University Dental Hospital of Manchester

    M. N. Pemberton

Authors
  1. J. Taylor
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  2. T. Walsh
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  3. H. Worthington
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  4. P. Brocklehurst
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  5. M. N. Pemberton
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  6. A. M. Glenny
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. Taylor.

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Refereed Paper

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Taylor, J., Walsh, T., Worthington, H. et al. Cochrane and the COMET initiative: developing the evidence base in oral medicine. Br Dent J 223, 729–732 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2017.893

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