Lower extremity artery disease (LEAD) is a sign of wide spread atherosclerosis also affecting coronary, cerebral and renal arteries and is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular events. Many economic evaluations have been published for LEAD due to its clinical, social and economic importance. The aim of this systematic review was to assess modelling methods used in published economic ...

BACKGROUND Musculoskeletal knee pain is a large and costly problem, and meniscal tears make up a large proportion of diagnoses. ‘Special tests’ to diagnose torn menisci are often used in the physical examination of the knee joint. A large number of publications within the literature have investigated the diagnostic accuracy of these tests, yet despite the wealth of research their diagnostic acc...

BACKGROUND Although the methodological quality of therapeutic guidelines (GLs) has been criticized, little is known regarding the quality of GLs that make diagnostic recommendations. Therefore, we assessed the methodological quality of GLs providing diagnostic recommendations for managing diabetes mellitus (DM) and explored several reasons for differences in quality across these GLs. METHODS ...

OBJECTIVE This systematic review summarizes the evidence on the accuracy of tests for assessing ACL ruptures of the knee. SEARCH STRATEGY A computerized search of MEDLINE (1966-2003) and EMBASE (1980-2003) with additional reference tracking. SELECTION CRITERIA Articles included were written in English, French, German, or Dutch, and addressed the accuracy of at least 1 physical diagnostic te...

Systematic reviews of diagnostic accuracy studies allow calculation of pooled estimates of accuracy with increased precision and examination of differences in accuracy between tests or subgroups of studies. Recently, several advances have been made in the methods used in performing systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy studies, most notably in how to assess the methodological quality o...

OBJECTIVE To review the prevalence of temporomandibular disorders (TMD) in children and adolescents, verifying the methodological variations. DATA SOURCES Research conducted in Medline, PubMed, Lilacs and BBO databases, including manuscripts (except reviews and case reports) published from 1990 to 2012. The descriptors were "temporomandibular joint syndrome", "temporomandibular joint dysfunct...

STUDY OBJECTIVE We assess the methodological quality and prognostic accuracy of clinical decision rules in emergency department (ED) syncope patients. METHODS We searched 6 electronic databases, reviewed reference lists of included studies, and contacted content experts to identify articles for review. Studies that derived or validated clinical decision rules in ED syncope patients were inclu...

BACKGROUND Gynecomastia is a common medical problem presenting in nearly a third of the male population. Treatment for gynecomastia can be either pharmacological or surgical. Patients with gynecomastia often experience affected quality-of-life. The aim of this systematic review was to analyze the quality of evidence of the current literature in relation to different treatment modalities and Qua...