SOURCE is proud to be a world leader in the area of evidence-based surgery (EBS). An exciting project is underway that serves SOURCE’s goals to increase awareness of the importance of evidence-based surgery among surgeons, and to increase the dissemination of surgical outcomes research findings. This project is the evidence-based surgery article series.
The aims of the series are: to introduce members of the surgical community to the concepts of evidence-based surgery, to pique surgeons’ interest in using an evidence-based approach in clinical practice and to reinforce the need for surgeons to get involved in surgical research. It is a recognised problem in surgical circles that randomised trials are more difficult to perform in surgery than medicine, thus most of the clinical research published in surgery is low level evidence. Both the volume of high quality clinical research in surgery and the uptake of research that is published are hampered by the fact that many surgeons have not developed the tools or the “know-how” to critically appraise evidence. This series will facilitate transfer of these skills to the surgical community.
Members of SOURCE from various sub-specialties are producing articles modelled on and supported by the successful, world-renowned Evidence Based Medicine Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) article series, led by Drs. Cook, Guyatt, and Sackett from the Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics department, McMaster University. Many surgeons are still unfamiliar with the JAMA series partially because of its publication in a medical rather than a surgical journal and also because the articles are focused around case scenarios which have all been medical rather than surgical problems. The SOURCE series articles are focused around a surgical clinical scenario with the appropriate methodology reviewed and discussed as it applies to using research in surgical practice. To date, manuscripts have been published in the areas of therapy, diagnosis, economic analysis, volume outcomes, literature searches and systematic overviews, with practical examples drawn from the fields of head and neck, thoracic, orthopedics, plastic and general surgery.
Published in Canadian Journal of Surgery:
- Archibald S, Bhandari M, Thoma A. Users’ guides to the surgical literature: how to use an article about a diagnostic test. Can J Surg 2001; Vol 44(1): 17-23. Corrections for this article found in Vol 44(6): 467.
- Urschel J, Tandan V, Miller J, Goldsmith C. Users’ guide to evidence-based surgery: how to use an article evaluating surgical interventions. Can J Surg 2001; Vol 44(2): 95-100.
- Thoma A, Tandan V, Sprague S. Users’ guide to the surgical literature: how to use an article on economic analysis. Can J Surg 2001; Vol 44(5): 347-54.
- Hong D, Tandan V, Goldsmith C, Simunovic M. Users’ guide to the surgical literature: how to use an article reporting population-based volume-outcome relationships in surgery. Can J Surg 2002; Vol 45(2): 109-15.
- Birch D, Eady A, Robertson D, De Pauw S, Tandan V. Users’ guide to the surgical literature: how to perform a literature search. Can J Surg 2003; Vol 46(2): 136-41.
- Bhandari M, Devereaux PJ, Montori V, Cinà C, Tandan V, Guyatt GH. Users’ guide to the surgical literature: How to use a systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Can J Surg 2004, 47(1); 60-7.
- Thoma A, Farrokhyar F, Bhandari M, Tandan V. Users’ guide to the surgical literature: how to assess a randomized controlled trial in surgery. Can J Surg 2004; Vol 47(3): 200-8.
- Birch D, Goldsmith GH, Tandan V. Users’ guide to the surgical literature: Self audit and practice appraisal for surgeons. Can J Surg 2005; 48(1): 57-62.
- Mastracci TM, Thoma A, Farrokhyar F, Tandan VR, Cina CS. Users’ guide to the surgical literature: how to use a decision analysis. Can J Surg 2007; 50(5): 403-409.
- Thoma A, Cornacchi SD, Lovrics PJ, Goldsmith CH. Users’ guide to the surgical literature: how to assess an article on health-related quality of life. Can J Surg 2008; 51(3): 215-224.
- Cadeddu M, Farrokhyar F, Thoma A, Haines T, Garnett A, Goldsmith CH. Users’ guide to the surgical literature: how to assess power and sample size. Can J Surg 2008; 51(6):476-82.
- Hansebout R, Cornacchi SD, Haines T, Goldsmith CH. Users’ guide to the surgical literature: how to use an article on prognosis. Can J Surg 2009; 52(4):328-36.
- Dijkman B, Kooistra B, Bhandari M. Users’ guide to the surgical literature: how to work with a subgroup analysis. Can J Surg Accepted for publication Feb 2009.
Free copies of the articles are available from the Canadian Journal of Surgery (CJS).