Published in:
Open Access
01-06-2012 | Editorials
Methods Guide for Authors of Systematic Reviews of Medical Tests: A Collaboration Between the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Journal of General Internal Medicine
Authors:
Gerald W. Smetana, MD, Craig A. Umscheid, MD, Stephanie Chang, MD, David B. Matchar, MD
Published in:
Journal of General Internal Medicine
|
Special Issue 1/2012
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Excerpt
Over the past 2 decades, systematic reviews have risen in number, quality, and impact. The sheer volume of work is remarkable. For example, the annual number of meta-analyses (a subset of systematic reviews) indexed by MEDLINE has grown from 273 in 1990 to 4,526 in 2010. Well-conceived and written systemic reviews serve many functions for stakeholders. First, they help clinicians apply evidence from the medical literature to patient care by critically appraising and summarizing what is often, for a given topic, a large amount of published clinical investigation. Systematic reviews are particularly useful when substantial practice variation exists, actual practice differs from published standards of care, clinical guidelines differ in their recommendations, and a large body of recent literature provides new insights that may modify recommendations from those of published guidelines. …
