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Trusted evidence. Informed decisions. Better health.

Issue 5 | October 2019

Cochrane Sweden Newsletter

Upcoming courses and workshops

Introduction to Cochrane Methodology

11-15 May, Lund University


Cochrane Sweden is pleased to announce that registration is now open for a 1-week course on Cochrane Methodology from the 11-15 May 2020. The course is mainly aimed at PhD students from the Faculty of Medicine, but is open for everyone to join. 

This 40-hour course will cover the following topics and also include self-tuition with Cochrane Interactive Learning.

Course content

  • Introduction to conducting systematic reviews
  • Writing the review protocol
  • Searching for studies
  • Selecting studies and collecting data
  • Introduction to study quality and risk of bias
  • Analysing the data
  • Interpreting the findings
  • Reporting the review


Teaching forms 
Lectures, Cochrane Interactive Learning platform, discussions and teamwork. 

Examination 
Active participation in discussions, Cochrane Interactive Learning online modules and teamwork. 

Where
Lund University, Sweden

Fee
- For PhD students at the Faculty of Medicine (from Swedish Universities or Copenhagen): Free participation.
- For other participants: 1500 SEK (approximately 145 euros). Fill in your information for your invoice here before 15 April 2020; payment is due by 30 April 2020.

How to register
Please register on the Lund University website: http://www.forskarutbildningskurser.med.lu.se/index.php

You can find a list of literature and other relevant information about the course via Lund University's course description. 

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Systematic Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy Studies Workshop -


21-22 January 2020 


This 2-day workshop is targeted at people who need to make decisions about diagnostic tests. It forms a coherent basis for systematically reviewing , analysing and interpreting diagnostic evidence.

Who should attend: The workshop is directed to review authors, healthcare professionals, clinicians, researchers (statisticians and epidemiologists), guideline developers and policymakers, who wish to know more about systematically reviewing and understanding diagnostic evidence. 

Prerequisites for workshop participants

  • Basic knowledge of the methodology and statistical analysis of primary studies of diagnostic test accuracy. 
  • Familiarity with the methodology and conduct of systematic reviews.

More information about the workshop and how to register

Listen to our new podcast about our latest review on malignant melanoma screening

Podcast: Screening for malignant melanoma (a type of skin cancer)Malignant melanoma, which can be fatal, is increasingly common and there is debate about whether it should join the list of cancers that are screened for.
A new Cochrane Review from June 2019 looks at the current evide
nce and we asked one of the authors, Minna Johansson from Cochrane Sweden, to tell us what they found.


Listen to the full podcast here.

In thinking about screening for cancers such as malignant melanoma, it’s important to remember that the vast majority of screened people cannot benefit from the screening because they will never develop the disease. When healthcare systems invite asymptomatic people to a screening intervention that they have not asked for, it leads to ethical considerations that differ from those in regular health care; we need to know that we do not cause more harm than good - and requirements for the certainty of the evidence are even greater than usual.

At the moment, Germany is the only country in the world with a national screening programme to detect malignant melanoma, but in many other countries, opportunistic screening is widespread. We wanted to find out whether screening is effective at reducing the adverse health impacts of melanoma and whether it has any harms.

Screening has the potential to reduce deaths from melanoma through earlier detection but potential harms could arise if people without symptoms are found to have melanomas and other skin lesions that would never have caused problems if they had remained undetected. They may then receive unnecessary surgery, or experience psychological stress. There is also a risk that financial and human resources used for screening could be better used on other interventions with a stronger evidence base and a better balance between benefits and harms.
We reviewed the evidence for the benefits and harms of organised screening for malignant melanoma compared with no screening. We looked for all types of screening, including skin self‐examination or examination by a health professional, of any person not suspected of having malignant melanoma. We included people thought to have a high risk of developing malignant melanoma but not those known to previously have had melanoma.

We found two randomised trials that met our inclusion criteria, but neither reported data on the important outcomes we wanted to investigate. This leaves us with insufficient evidence to quantify the benefits and harms of screening for malignant melanoma, and means that current screening practices for melanoma do not live up to the required evidence standards of organisations such as the WHO and the UK National Screening Committee, which specifically highlight the importance of solid evidence for both benefits and harms prior to implementation of a screening programme.

In summary, our review shows that adult general population screening for malignant melanoma is not supported or refuted by evidence from randomised trials and therefore does not fulfil well-established screening criteria. Yet screening for malignant melanoma is currently practised in many countries in a more or less organised form. A robust randomised trial is highly desirable to enable people to weigh potential harms against potential benefits, both to make sure that a screening programme will not cause more harm than good and to ensure that, if it does have important potential benefits, it is not dismissed inappropriately.

Join Cochrane Sweden

Would you like to be a part of the Cochrane community? We have over 68,000 supporters from around the world and 11,000 members. There a number of ways that you can contribute.  You can find out more from our Join Cochrane page on how you can be a part of Cochrane. 

Watch this 3-minute video to learn more about Cochrane Sweden and what we do.

At Cochrane Sweden, we also regularly host and train people who would like to work with Cochrane through the Cochrane International Mobility Programme. Some of the people participating on this programme have kindly shared their stories, which can be read on the Join Cochrane webpage. 
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