The Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group
The Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group
 

NEW IMPACT FACTOR FOR COCHRANE
The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews obtained its first impact factor in 2007. It was 4.654 and ranked 14 out of 100 journals in the ISI category Medicine, General & Internal. Although disputed, the impact factor is considered a relevant measure for the importance of a journal. The choice where to submit a paper is often at least partly based on the impact factor of a journal. We encourage our review authors to cite other relevant Cochrane intervention and methodology reviews and keep in mind that only recent reviews (published new or substantially updated in the last two years prior to the publication date of the citing review) are helpful for raising the impact factor. A review that will be published in 2009 should preferably cite reviews published in 2007 and 2008.

Want to have a say in what treatments and medications are reviewed by the CMSG team?Fill out our survey to help us set research priorities and determine where more research is needed.  Complete our survey here .

PRIORITY AREAS FOR NEW SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS
- Fibromyalgia : Diet, nutrition and supplements, electrophysical agents, manual therapies, needling therapies

- Gout: surgery (removal of tophaceous masses)

- Osteoarthritis: Cox-2 inhibitors in seperate reviews (excluding rofecoxib and etoricoxib, catilage transplant repair during patellar resurfacing, low level laser therapy, joint distraction

- Soft tissue: lateral hip pain, splints for De Quervain's tenosynovitis, carpal tunnel syndrome (corticosteroid injection, surgery, splinting)

- Osteoporosis: denosumab (RANK ligand inhibitor), lasofoxifene, odanacatib, vibration therapy   

AUTHORS NEEDED!! Help update a Cochrane review! 
Help is currently needed for several important reviews:  
- Deep transverse friction massage for treating tendinitis
- Intensity of exercise for the treatment of osteoarthritis
- Low level laser therapy (clases I, II, III) for treating rheumatoid arthritis
- Therapeutic ultrasound for treating patellofemoral pain syndrome
- Thermotherapy for treatment of osteoarthritis
- Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in the hand
- Electrical stimulation for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis
- Fluoride for treating postmenopausal osteoarthritis
- Therapeutic ultrasound for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis
- Complementary therapies for psoriatic arthritis

Please contact us at cmsg@uottawa.ca if you are interested in writing or helping on a systematic review for any of the above mentioned topic areas.

Read our most recent NEWSLETTER

GRADING SYSTEM: platinum, gold, silver, bronze

The Cochrane Musculoskeletal Review Group (CMSG) is a specialized group of health care professionals, researchers and consumer representatives that belong to the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that aims to help people make-well informed decisions about health care by preparing, maintaining and promoting reviews of the effects of health care treatments.

A collaborative review group, like CMSG, consists of people from around the world who share an interest in developing and maintaining systematic reviews relevant to a particular health area. In the case of CMSG, our scope covers all areas of musculoskeletal conditions, including: gout, lupus erythematosus, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, pediatric rheumatology, rheumatoid arthritis, soft tissue conditions, spondylo-arthropathy, systemic sclerosis and vasculitis.

The CMSG is also dedicated to making our systematic reviews available to those interested in treatments for musculoskeletal diseases (see more about our efforts to communicate the evidence ). Currently, the systematic reviews that the CMSG produces are made avialable in 3 ways:

1) Cochrane Library - search this library for the complete systematic reviews that are available by subscription

2) CMSG Abstracts of Cochrane Reviews - search for the abstracts of our reviews that are freely available

3) Plain Language Summaries - summaries of our systematic reviews that are easy to understand and freely available at the Arthritis Society web site

 

 The years 2000 to 2010 have been officially endorsed by many countries across the world as the Bone and Joint Decade (BJD) . The CMSG fully supports the goals of the BJD:
1) to reduce the social and financial cost of musculoskeletal disorders to society,
2) to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment for all patients,
3) to advance research on prevention and treatment, and
4) to empower patients to make decisions about their care.

The Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group is grateful for the financial support of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH).