Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an autosomal dominant neoplastic disease caused by mutations in the NF1 gene and one of the most challenging diseases to treat. Patients have a characteristic phenotype with neurofibromas as the main features in different forms, including numerous cutaneous neurofibromas, plexiform neurofibromas involving the primary nerves, or malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors with a very short survival period after malignant transformation. NF1 patients also suffer from multi-system involvement, with a high rate of deformity and disability, making complete surgical resection more difficult. Currently, there is no consensus on the diagnosis and treatment of NF1 in China, and different disciplines have different understandings of NF1. Multidisciplinary systematic evaluations and cooperative treatments are the keys to improve the treatment, quality of life, and prognosis of NF1 patients. In 2020, the Department of Plastic Surgery of the Ninth People’s Hospital of Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine led the establishment of the first multi-center collaboration group for NF1 in China. Furthermore, the group had worked with renowned experts from the various departments including surgical oncology, medical oncology, dermatology, reproductive medicine, et al. in China to formulate the “Expert consensus on diagnosis and management of neurofibromatosis type 1 (2021 edition)”, aiming to promote standardized and homogeneous treatment covering the whole life cycle of NF1 patients and improve the treatment level and outcome of NF1 patients in China.
Over the past two decades, the International Cochrane Collaboration has completely transformed the mechanism of health decision-making. Cochrane aims to collect, summarize and disseminate the best current research evidence via The Cochrane Library in order to help stakeholders making informed health care decisions. Cochrane began with just a few dozen volunteers and has, over the years, transformed into a truly global and inclusive network, with 37 000 contributors from over 130 countries. Cochrane evidence has long been recognized as high quality and trustworthy international gold standard in health care. In recent years, Cochrane has initiated a number of innovative projects to attract more researchers from different socio-cultural and educational backgrounds. This commentary introduces these new platforms and illustrates the opportunities offered to Chinese researchers by the modern-era Cochrane.
Objective To evaluate the effect of physician-nurse-pharmacist collaboration on cardiovascular disease risk factors in diabetes patients. Methods Randomized controlled trails (RCTs) on collaboration among physicians, nurses and pharmacists for reducing cardiovascular disease risk factors in diabetes patients were collected from Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Medline (Ovid SP), Embase, China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database, VIP and WanFang. We screened the retrieved studies according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, evaluated the quality of included studies, and then performed meta-analysis with the Cochrane Collaboration’s Revman 5.3.0 software. Results Seven RCTs were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that the change in glycosylated hemoglobin A1c, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol were significantly reduced in the collaboration group than in usual care group [SMD=–0.39, 95%CI (–0.56, –0.21),P<0.000 1;SMD=–0.30, 95%CI (–0.43, –0.18),P<0.000 01;SMD=–0.37, 95%CI (–0.64, –0.11),P=0.006;SMD=–0.11, 95%CI (–0.16, –0.06),P<0.000 1]. Conclusions Collaboration among physicians, nurses and pharmacists is effective for reducing cardiovascular disease risk factors in diabetes patients. But its long-term efficacy still needs to be confirmed by performing higher quality, large sample RCTs with long-term follow-up.
Running an infection control regular meeting is an effective way to develop and improve the communication between the infection control team and clinical units. This paper introduces the infection control regular monthly meeting which is held in the last week of each month in a newly-opened branch hospital of a university teaching hospital in China. Through collecting the issues for discussion beforehand, feeding back the surveillance data of last month including nosocomial infection, hand hygiene, multidrug-resistant organisms, occupational exposure, and medical waste, discussing the current infection control issues from each ward and trying to solve them together, and delivering and sharing new knowledge, skills, and information in terms of infection control, the monthly meeting achieves remarkable successes in the aspects of promoting the hospital infection control-related cultural construction, enhancing the supervision and implementation of infection control measures, and running new projects on hospital infection management, etc. Infection control regular monthly meeting builds up a study and work platform, promotes the multidisciplinary and multi-department communication and collaboration, and improves the quality of infection control eventually.
Chris Silagy is the Chair of The Cochrane Collaboration between 1996 and 1998, and the founder as well as the first Director of the Australasian Cochrane Centre. He helped to establish the Chinese Cochrane Centre. He has made great contributions to the establishment and development of The Cochrane Collaboration to which he devoted his whole life. Though he died at the early age of 41, his optimism, great energy and b responsibility have left deep impression and inspiration to every one around him.
The Campbell Collaboration is an international nonprofit academic organization which concerns about production, storage and transmission high quality systematic reviews of the effects of social interventions, and it is called the sister organization of Cochrane Collaboration. Now the thinking and methods of Evidence-based medicine has been widely used in the field of clinical medicine, but its application in non-clinical medicine fields such as education and social area is rarely understood and used. This paper introduced the writing procedures and techniques of Campbell Systematic Review (C2SR), and to make the researchers preliminary understand how to resolve the problems in non-clinical field using the systematic review, and to encourage researchers try to use and write C2SR.
The Campbell collaboration (C2) is an international research network that produces and disseminates systematic reviews of the effects of interventions in education, criminal justice, and social welfare. It aims to generate the best research evidence to support policy and practice in order to bring about positive social change. This issue introduces the experiences of the author while taking part in the ninth annual Campbell colloquium, and tries to increase awareness about C2.