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(Stroke. 2003;34:2537.)
© 2003 American Heart Association, Inc.

Cochrane Corner

Cochrane Stroke Group 10 Years On

Progress to Date and Future Challenges

From the Cochrane Stroke Group, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, UK.

Correspondence to Prof Peter A. Sandercock, University of Edinburgh, Dept of Clinical Neurosciences, Neurosciences Trial Unit, Western General Hospital, Crewe Rd, Edinburgh, EH4 2XU, UK. E-mail pags@skull.dcn.ed.ac.uk

Key Words: databases • randomized controlled trials • systematic review

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

The Cochrane Collaboration¹ is an international organization that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about health care by preparing, maintaining, and ensuring the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of health care interventions. In the early 1990s, there was clearly a need for systematic reviews in stroke,² and so the Cochrane Stroke Group³ was set up and registered with the Cochrane Collaboration on August 1, 1993.

Aims

The goals of the Cochrane Stroke Group are as follows:

(1) Identify all randomized controlled trials and controlled clinical trials of interventions for the secondary prevention of stroke, the acute treatment and rehabilitation of stroke patients (including those with subarachnoid hemorrhage), and the organization of stroke services. To keep these reports in a Specialized Register of Trials and to ensure that it is a comprehensive and up-to-date database of reports of planned, ongoing, and completed stroke trials.

(2) Produce high-quality Cochrane reviews for publication in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, available on the Cochrane Library,⁴ an electronic publication available on CD-ROM or online.

(3) Ensure that published reviews are updated as new evidence becomes available.

Methods

Protocols for reviews are prepared according to strict methodological guidelines and must be accepted for publication before work on the review can begin. Protocols and completed reviews are subject to extensive and rigorous peer review before publication (full details of Cochrane methods and Stroke Group specific methods are available in the Cochrane Handbook and the Stroke Group’s Module, respectively, in the Cochrane Library).⁴

Progress Thus Far

Specialized Register of Trials
To find relevant . . . [Full Text of this Article]