What are the benefits and harms of lubricating eye drops for contact lens discomfort?

Ankle fractures are one of the most common fractures of the lower limb and it’s important to have evidence on how to help people recover from them. There’s been a Cochrane Review of this since 2008 and the most recent update was published in September 2024. In this podcast, Sophie Degraeve from Symmetron, talks with new author, Chris Bretherton from the Blizard Institute at Queen Mary University of London in the UK, about the latest findings.

Several Cochrane Reviews look at interventions for palliative care. These were added to in September 2024 with the publication of a new review of psychedelic-assisted therapy. In this podcast, two of the authors, Sivan Schipper from Spital Uster and Christopher Boehlke from University Hospital Basel both in Switzerland, tell us about the treatment and the review’s findings.

The hundreds of reviews from the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group include several of vitamin supplementation during pregnancy. One of these looks at Vitamin D and its third update was published in July 2024. We asked one of the authors, Lia Kostiuk, a board-certified Preventive Medicine physician in the USA to tell us about the latest findings in this podcast.

Many wearers of contact lenses use lubricating drops to ease the discomfort they feel with the lens, but how effective are these drops? Here’s lead author of the September 2024 Cochrane review, Barbara Caffery from Toronto Eye Care in Canada, to tell us about the evidence.

The Cochrane Neonatal Group produces and updates Cochrane Reviews to provide comprehensive coverage of the evidence on the care of babies and infants. In this podcast, we present an important topic in neonatal care: the management of pain and discomfort during spinal taps in newborns, for which a new Cochrane review was published in September 2023. In this podcast, two of the authors talk about the findings. Ehsan Hedayati and Sara Pessano, welcome to the podcast.

The Cochrane Skin group has produced more than 100 reviews. These were added to in August 2024 by a new network meta-analysis of topical anti-inflammatory treatments for eczema. We asked lead author, Robert Boyle from Imperial College London in the UK to tell us about the condition and the findings of his review in this podcast.

Mobile phones feature widely in the delivery of health care, and they are also used informally by people delivering this care. This is explored in an August 2024 Cochrane qualitative evidence synthesis of healthcare workers’ use of their own phones at work. In this podcast, two of the authors, Nelson Sewankambo from Makerere University in Uganda and Claire Glenton from the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences talk about why they did the review and its findings.

In this podcast, review author Jan Verbakel talks with first author Liselore De Rop, a PhD candidate of the KU Leuven in Belgium who is involved in COVID-19 research, about their August 2024 review of the accuracy of routine laboratory tests to predict mortality and deterioration for patients with severe or critical COVID-19.

There are many Cochrane Reviews about the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis and those involved in managing this condition also need to know about its prognosis, especially in the presence of other illnesses. We can now help them in regard to diabetes and tuberculosis, with a new review published in August 2024. Here are two of the authors, Juan Franco and Yang Guo from the Institute of General Practice, Medical Faculty of the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf in Germany, to tell us more.

Among the 20 or so Cochrane reviews of treatments for myocardial infarction is one that reached its third update in August 2024. It looks at the effects of stem cells, and we asked new lead author, Peter-Paul Zwetsloot from University Medical Centre Utrecht in the Netherlands to tell us about the importance of the review and the latest findings.