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The article highlights the large 'research gap' for common diseases,
especially the diseases affecting the developing world. The global burden
of disease attributed to stroke and cerebrovascular diseases is large, and
set to increase as more countries make the economic transition towards
becoming 'established market economies'. It would therefore have been
helpful - had space allowed - if the number of systematic reviews
relevant to stroke and heart disease had been reported separately (and not
lumped together under 'cardiovascular disease'); are these data
available?
Competing interests:
Yes! I'm co-ordinating editor of the cochrane stroke group
We read Swingler and colleagues paper (1) with interest but would
like to point out that the Database of Abstracts of
Reviews of Effects (DARE), produced by the Centre for
Reviews and Dissemination, is also an electronic database.
The database is unique in that it contains abstracts of
systematic reviews that have been quality-assessed. Each
abstract includes a summary of the review together with a
short critical commentary about the overall quality. DARE
aims for a broad coverage of health care related topics and
includes reviews in fields as diverse as public health,
health promotion, pharmacology, surgery, psychology and the
organisation and delivery of healthcare.
The database is updated monthly and is publicly available
and free of charge via the internet at: www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd
(1) Swingler GH, Volmink J, Ioannidis JPA. Number of
published systematic reviews and global burden of disease:
database analysis. BMJ 2003;327:1083-1084.
Competing interests:
DARE is produced and maintained by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination.
Competing interests:
No competing interests
11 November 2003
Paul M Wilson
Research Fellow
Alison Booth, Julie M Glanville, Amanda J Sowden
Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York, York, YO10 5DD
What about stroke?
The article highlights the large 'research gap' for common diseases,
especially the diseases affecting the developing world. The global burden
of disease attributed to stroke and cerebrovascular diseases is large, and
set to increase as more countries make the economic transition towards
becoming 'established market economies'. It would therefore have been
helpful - had space allowed - if the number of systematic reviews
relevant to stroke and heart disease had been reported separately (and not
lumped together under 'cardiovascular disease'); are these data
available?
Competing interests:
Yes! I'm co-ordinating editor of the cochrane stroke group
Competing interests: No competing interests