LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Zbys Fedorowicz

Director of The Cochrane Collaboration - The Bahrain Branch of the UK Cochrane Centre

Dear professor Carlos

It was a great pleasure to receive today two issues of the Journal of Applied Oral Science (JAOS).

It does seem such a long time ago when we met in Brazil, last October, when you attended and participated at the workshop "Evidence Based Medicine - a Cochrane Experience". This workshop was held jointly by the Bahrain Branch of the UK Cochrane Centre and the Universidade de São Paulo Faculdade de Odontologia de Ribeirão Preto prior to the Cochrane Colloquium in São Paulo.

As you know we took the opportunity at the workshop to handsearch this journal for reports of randomized controlled trials and I am delighted to see the vast strides that have been made by the JAOS and in particular the requirement that all trials to be published in the journal should have been prospectively registered according to WHO and ICJME policies.

I would also wish to respectfully suggest that consideration should be given to including a requirement that all trials for publication should conform to the CONSORT statement and that these reports of clinical trials should also begin with a systematic review of other evidenc¹.

Congratulations on a superb journal it truly deserves its most recent accolade, to be selected for coverage in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE).

Yours faithfully

Zbys Fedorowicz

1 - Horton R. Putting clinical trials into context. Lancet. 2005;36: 107.         [ Links ]

Received: May 5, 2008
Accepted: May 5, 2008

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