Secondary prevention of coronary heart disease

doi:10.1136/bmj.324.7337.611

BMJ 2002;324:611 ( 9 March )

Letters

Secondary prevention of coronary heart disease

Ill defined inclusion criteria resulted in missed trials

Secondary prevention programmes may reduce overall mortality in high risk patients

Improved outcomes need to be defined

Ill defined inclusion criteria resulted in missed trials

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ The review by McAlister et al of secondary prevention programmes in coronary heart disease does not adhere to someof the major principals of good practice when conducting systematicreviews of the medical literature.^1-3 These include a clearlydefined research question, strict inclusion criteria so that thereview can be replicated, an exhaustive search of the medicalliterature to find all relevant studies, and findings that canbe interpreted easily by the reader and relate to clinicalpractice.

McAlister et al, at first glance, have chosen a huge area of the medical literature to review, encompassing both pharmacologicaland non-pharmacological interventions for the secondary preventionof coronary heart disease. On closer inspection, they say thatit is their intention to review the literature concerned withdisease management programmes for coronary heart disease. Thedefinition of disease management programmes used is broad andis quoted as that proposed by . . . [Full text of this article]

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Randomised trials of secondary prevention programmes in coronary heart disease: systematic review: Finlay A McAlister, Fiona M E Lawson, Koon K Teo, and Paul W Armstrong
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