The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions is the official document that describes in detail the process of preparing and maintaining Cochrane systematic reviews on the effects of healthcare interventions.

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Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a major public health problem. It is the fourth leading cause of chronic morbidity and mortality in the United States, and is projected to rank fifth in 2020 in burden of disease worldwide, according to a study published by the World Bank/World Health Organization. Yet, COPD remains relatively unknown or ignored by the public as well as public health and government officials. In 1998, in an effort to bring more attention to COPD, its management, and its prevention, a committed group of scientists encouraged the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the World Health Organization to form the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD). Among the important objectives of GOLD are to increase awareness of COPD and to help the millions of people who suffer from this disease and die prematurely of it or its complications. The first step in the GOLD program was to prepare a consensus report, Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management, and Prevention of COPD, published in 2001. The present, newly revised document follows the same format as the original consensus report, but has been updated to reflect the many publications on COPD that have appeared. GOLD national leaders, a network of international experts, have initiated investigations of the causes and prevalence of COPD in their countries, and developed innovative approaches for the dissemination and implementation of COPD management guidelines. We appreciate the enormous amount of work the GOLD national leaders have done on behalf of their patients with COPD. Despite the achievements in the 5 years since the GOLD report was originally published, considerable additional work is ahead of us if we are to control this major public health problem. The GOLD initiative will continue to bring COPD to the attention of governments, public health officials, health care workers, and the general public, but a concerted effort by all involved in health care will be necessary.

https://www.who.int/respiratory/copd/GOLD_WR_06.pdf

Global strategy for the diagnosis, management, and prevention of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: GOLD executive summary.

The UK Biobank project is a prospective cohort study with deep genetic and phenotypic data collected on approximately 500,000 individuals from across the United Kingdom, aged between 40 and 69 at recruitment. The open resource is unique in its size and scope. A rich variety of phenotypic and health-related information is available on each participant, including biological measurements, lifestyle indicators, biomarkers in blood and urine, and imaging of the body and brain. Follow-up information is provided by linking health and medical records. Genome-wide genotype data have been collected on all participants, providing many opportunities for the discovery of new genetic associations and the genetic bases of complex traits. Here we describe the centralized analysis of the genetic data, including genotype quality, properties of population structure and relatedness of the genetic data, and efficient phasing and genotype imputation that increases the number of testable variants to around 96 million. Classical allelic variation at 11 human leukocyte antigen genes was imputed, resulting in the recovery of signals with known associations between human leukocyte antigen alleles and many diseases.

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The UK Biobank resource with deep phenotyping and genomic data

An earlier version (version 5.0.2, 2008) of the Handbook is also published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd under “The Cochrane Book Series” Imprint, as Higgins JPT, Green S (editors), Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (ISBN 978-0470057964) by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, England, Telephone (+44) 1243 779777; Email (for orders and customer service enquiries): cs-books@wiley.co.uk. Visit their Home Page on www.wiley.com.

Chapter 8: Assessing risk of bias in included studies

Assessing Risk of Bias in Included Studies

Induced sputum in asthma

Cytokine-Specific Therapy in Asthma

It is a daunting task to take over the reins of Thorax , after the fantastically successful last years. Thorax is ranked second in the world among respiratory journals, with an impact factor of 7.069, and this is due mainly to the untiring efforts of the previous team, so ably headed by Wisia Wedzicha and Seb Johnston, building on the foundations laid by previous Editorial teams. It would be wrong not to acknowledge with respect and amazement the achievements to date. They have been the real giants on whose shoulders we stand (definitely not in the snide sense originally used by Newton). So we approach the next 5 years with some trepidation, but great excitement. Clearly we are not going to make radical changes; we want to continue to attract the best clinical work and basic science to the journal. We do believe there are areas on which we would like to focus to move the journal forward.

We want to facilitate the rapid publication of good clinical trials, the backbone of evidence-based medicine. We will offer peer review of the protocol when it has been registered on any approved site. If the protocol passes peer review, we will offer fast-track publication on completion …

https://thorax.bmj.com/content/thoraxjnl/65/11/943.full.pdf

On the shoulders of (real) giants

If this ‘‘alternative form’’ was mentioned during the invitation to take part in the study (which is not stated in the article), then all the subjects could have been self-motivated, which is not representative of the general population and hence the results cannot be generalised. Last, the subjects who underwent breathing training were encouraged to do the breathing exercises throughout the 6-month period whereas the control group had three sessions of asthma education with no such ongoing ‘‘controlling effect’’. A significant improvement in forced expiratory volume in 1 s and a significant fall in exhaled nitric oxide 1 month after the intervention in the control group shows the beneficial effect of patient education. Hence, effective pharmacotherapy with asthma education continues to be the core of asthma treatment. The role of breathing training is possibly present in subjects who have a tendency to hyperventilate, which need not be due just to asthma but to any cause.

Ian D. Pavord

Papers

Induced sputum in asthma

Cytokine-Specific Therapy in Asthma

On the shoulders of (real) giants

Role of breathing exercises in hyperventilating subjects

Clinical Respiratory Medicine