Animal models for cystic fibrosis: A systematic search and mapping review of the literature - Part 1: genetic models.

Animal models for cystic fibrosis (CF) have enhanced our understanding of the pathology and contributed to the development of new treatments. In the field of CF, many animal models have been developed and described. To our knowledge, thus far, none of the reviews of CF animal models has used a systematic methodology.

Bone Regeneration Using Antiosteoporotic Drugs in Adjunction with Bone Grafting: A Meta-Analysis.

The aim of this review was to systematically assess bone regeneration by using antiosteoporotic drugs in adjunction with bone grafting compared with controls (bone grafting without the administration of antiosteoporotic drugs). The review also evaluated statistical differences in the effect between systemic and local routes of drugs. Also, the effect of type of drugs (anticatabolic vs.

Antiosteoporotic Drugs to Promote Bone Regeneration Related to Titanium Implants: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

This meta-analysis was to investigate literature on the administration of antiosteoporotic drugs as an effective adjunct therapy for implant osseointegration using animal models.

Aggressive behavior in transgenic animal models: A systematic review.

Aggressive behavior is often core or comorbid to psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. Transgenic animal models are commonly used to study the neurobiological mechanisms underlying aggressive phenotypes and have led to new insights into aggression. This systematic review critically evaluates the available literature on transgenic animal models tested for aggression with the resident-intruder test.

Actual Usage and Quality of Experimental Colitis Models in Preclinical Efficacy Testing: A Scoping Review.

Background: There is no standardized validated experimental model used to predict human drug response, and the choice of model is not based on systematic evidence. Therefore, we decided to systematically investigate which models are currently used by selecting studies from literature that use prescribed inflammatory bowel disease medication as a positive control.

Methods: A search of PubMed was performed using terms describing experimental colitis models and the drugs used in corresponding clinical practice followed by the application of an animal filter.

Calcium homeostasis and low-frequency magnetic and electric field exposure: A systematic review and meta-analysis of in vitro studies.

Low frequency magnetic field (LF MF) exposure is recurrently suggested to have the ability to induce health effects in society. Therefore, in vitro model systems are used to investigate biological effects of exposure. LF MF induced changes of the cellular calcium homeostasis are frequently hypothesised to be the possible target, but this hypothesis is both substantiated and rejected by numerous studies in literature.

Drug delivery systems for ovarian cancer treatment: a systematic review and meta-analysis of animal studies.

Current ovarian cancer treatment involves chemotherapy that has serious limitations, such as rapid clearance, unfavorable biodistribution and severe side effects. To overcome these limitations, drug delivery systems (DDS) have been developed to encapsulate chemotherapeutics for delivery to tumor cells. However, no systematic assessment of the efficacy of chemotherapy by DDS compared to free chemotherapy (not in a DDS) has been performed for animal studies.

Cell-Based Approaches in Periodontal Regeneration: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Periodontal Defect Models in Animal Experimental Work.

Various cell types have been assessed for experimental periodontal tissue regeneration in a variety of animal models. Nonetheless, the efficacy of cell-based approaches for periodontal regeneration is still controversial. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to systematically review cell-based approaches for periodontal regeneration in animal studies including a meta-analysis to obtain more clarity on their efficacy.

The usefulness of systematic reviews of animal experiments for the design of preclinical and clinical studies.

The question of how animal studies should be designed, conducted, and analyzed remains underexposed in societal debates on animal experimentation. This is not only a scientific but also a moral question. After all, if animal experiments are not appropriately designed, conducted, and analyzed, the results produced are unlikely to be reliable and the animals have in effect been wasted.

Systematic reviews of animal studies; missing link in translational research?

Background: The methodological quality of animal studies is an important factor hampering the translation of results from animal studies to a clinical setting. Systematic reviews of animal studies may provide a suitable method to assess and thereby improve their methodological quality.

Objectives: The aims of this study were: 1) to evaluate the risk of bias assessment in animal-based systematic reviews, and 2) to study the internal validity of the primary animal studies included in these systematic reviews.

SYRCLE's risk of bias tool for animal studies.

Background: Systematic Reviews (SRs) of experimental animal studies are not yet common practice, but awareness of the merits of conducting such SRs is steadily increasing. As animal intervention studies differ from randomized clinical trials (RCT) in many aspects, the methodology for SRs of clinical trials needs to be adapted and optimized for animal intervention studies. The Cochrane Collaboration developed a Risk of Bias (RoB) tool to establish consistency and avoid discrepancies in assessing the methodological quality of RCTs.

The potential of tissue engineering for developing alternatives to animal experiments: a systematic review.

An underexposed ethical issue raised by tissue engineering is the use of laboratory animals in tissue engineering research. Even though this research results in suffering and loss of life in animals, tissue engineering also has great potential for the development of alternatives to animal experiments. With the objective of promoting a joint effort of tissue engineers and alternative experts to fully realise this potential, this study provides the first comprehensive overview of the possibilities of using tissue-engineered constructs as a replacement of laboratory animals.

The effects of probiotic supplementation on experimental acute pancreatitis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: In February 2008, the results of the PRObiotics in PAncreatitis TRIAl (PROPATRIA) were published. This study investigated the use of probiotics in patients suffering from severe acute pancreatitis. No differences between the groups were found for any of the primary endpoints.

Reducing the number of laboratory animals used in tissue engineering research by restricting the variety of animal models. Articular cartilage tissue engineering as a case study.

The use of laboratory animals in tissue engineering research is an important underexposed ethical issue. Several ethical questions may be raised about this use of animals. This article focuses on the possibilities of reducing the number of animals used.

The effects of long-term omega-3 fatty acid supplementation on cognition and Alzheimer's pathology in animal models of Alzheimer's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

To date, only a few randomized clinical trials (RCTs) have investigated the effects of omega-3 fatty acids (FA) on Alzheimer's disease (AD). Some of these studies demonstrated that patients with very mild AD or mild cognitive impairment benefit from omega-3 FA treatment, but none showed significant improvements in cognitive function in patients with moderate or advanced AD. All these RCTs had a relatively short duration of supplementation, however, and we hypothesized that this might be one of the reasons why no effects of omega-3 FA supplementation could be observed in patients with "moderate" or "advanced" AD.

A search filter for increasing the retrieval of animal studies in Embase.

Collecting and analysing all available literature before starting a new animal experiment is important and it is indispensable when writing systematic reviews of animal research. In practice, finding all animal studies relevant to a specific research question turns out to be anything but simple. In order to facilitate this search process, we previously developed a search filter for retrieving animal studies in the most often used biomedical database, PubMed.

Ethical aspects of tissue engineering: a review.

Tissue engineering (TE) is a promising new field of medical technology. However, like other new technologies, it is not free of ethical challenges. Identifying these ethical questions at an early stage is not only part of science's responsibility toward society, but also in the interest of the field itself.