Published 1 May 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1722
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1722

Feature

Surgical research

Cutting truths

¹ London

Unlike drugs, surgical techniques are often not evaluated in randomised trials. Geoff Watts investigates why

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

Of the 12 million or so NHS hospital admissions that take place during any one year, at least 30% involve surgery. Yet in 2006-7 only 1.3% of government spending on medical research was devoted to surgery. Of course, the notion that research spending should correlate precisely with disease prevalence, medical workload, or any other measure of health burden is naive. But 30% against 1.3% is quite a difference. In the face of a gap this wide, the comment from Norman Williams, president of the Society of Academic and Research Surgery, that: "There’s a mismatch," seems positively understated.

Nor is he alone in his worries about the output of surgical research. Commentators have been raising the issue for years.¹ Parliamentary committees have discussed it.² And in the latest university research assessment exercise, the chairs of both panels responsible for appraising most of the work in the field commented on its poor . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Randomised trials in surgery: problems and possible solutions

Peter McCulloch, Irving Taylor, Mitsuru Sasako, Bryony Lovett, and Damian Griffin
BMJ 2002 324: 1448-1451. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Cutting Truths: parallels in radiation oncology

Ian H Kunkler
bmj.com, 16 Jul 2009 [Full text]

Surgeons must think smaller

Mahmood F Bhutta
bmj.com, 19 Jul 2009 [Full text]

Online poll

Find out more here>> and here>>