Dear friends.
Now in this time of hallelujah etc., the Danish Cochrane Center has finally
read the 1998 paper banning the medical use of albumin (BMJ
1998;17:235-40). Now they have in a very pathetic wording contacted (I
believe) each and every hospital in little Denmark urging the
administrators to put a formal band on the use of albumin. They solemnly
declare this, since "a careful meta-analysis is the highest level of
scientific evidence available" (my translation from Danish). The debate
raised following this albumin paper in BMJ stressed several good points
among them that some of the papers forming the basis for the meta-analysis
were poor or doubtful quality. Apart from this, is this really commonly
accepted wisdom that fixed-model meta-analysis is the ultimate medical
science ? Frankly, I thought we were about to agree that meta-analysis was
not always nonsense. Not more. We are going to provide a formal answer to
our hospital administrators (who were not formerly known to be a bit
interested in science) and I would appreciate (directly to me) your
comments on the status of meta-analysis, and perhaps also the albumin question.
Best wishes
Troels Ring, MD
Department of Nephrology
Aalborg Hospital, Denmark
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"Doubt everything or believe everything:these are two equally convenient
strategies. With either we dispense with the need to think."
- Henri Poincare'
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