Amikacin use and therapeutic drug monitoring in adults: do dose regimens and drug exposures affect either outcome or adverse events? A systematic review.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to identify the amikacin dosage regimens and drug concentrations consistent with good outcomes and to determine the drug exposures related to nephrotoxicity and ototoxicity.

Methods: A literature review was conducted in Medline, EMBASE and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. Full journal articles reporting randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, interrupted time series trials, and controlled before and after studies involving amikacin therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) and dose adjustment were considered for inclusion.

Pain leads the way: the development of evidence-based medicine for pain relief.

This paper describes the development of evidence based methods in pain medicine since the 1980s at the Pain Research Department of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Oxford University. Pain medicine can be said to have led the way in terms of developing registers of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and in developing appropriate methodology for assessing clinical trials and developing metanalytical techniques. This paper tells the story of that development which occurred in conjunction with the development of the Cochrane Collaboration.