Maartje Luijten, Assistant Professor at the Behavioural Science Institute at Radboud University, writes her debut blog on a recent meta-analysis of deficits in behavioural inhibition in substance abuse and addiction.
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This review of functional orthodontic appliances included 10 CCTs and 7 RCTs and found they produced short-term improvements in class II malocclusion. This needs to be considered with a recent Cochrane review of early treatment for children with class II malocclusion that found that it was more effective in reducing the incidence of incisal trauma than providing one course of orthodontic treatment in early adolescence.
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Lucy Simons reports on a meta-ethnography that explores what facilitates peer support for perinatal mental illness. Her key finding from appraising the review is that women who experience perinatal mental illness need support from the right sort of peer (i.e. women who have had mental distress in the context of motherhood) to make the relationship beneficial and to aid recovery.
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This new review of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) includes more trials ( 14) that two earlier reviews of this topic. While no improvements in pain were seen with LLT functional improvements were seen. Although 14 studies were included they only 454 patients have been included in studies to date.
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Elena Marcus summarises a recent network meta-analysis published in The Lancet of the comparative efficacy and tolerability of medication for the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder.
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Andrés Fonseca appraises a recent meta-analysis of adherence to Internet CBT and face-to-face cognitive behavioural therapy for depression.
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This review of survival rates of dental implants placed in fresh extraction sockets included 73 studies. However the majority were retrospective with only 5 small RCTs and 26 controlled trials. While the findings suggest that failure rates are higher in extraction sockets the evidence should be interpreted with caution.
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Ioana Cristea critically reviews a recent meta-analysis of Internet-based CBT for patients with chronic somatic conditions. She concludes that the review authors are offering an overly positive interpretation of their results, and that we need more high quality studies before we can recommend online cognitive behaviour therapy for this population.
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This review included 44 studies (25 prospective, 19 retrospective) and suggests that survival rates for tilted and axially dental implants are similar. However the findings should be treated with caution because of the limited quality of the available evidence.
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This new review investigated the effect of alcohol on 23 cancer types. They included 572 case-control and cohort studies and using meta-analysis and a dose–response meta-regression model found relative risks for heavy drinkers compared with nondrinkers and occasional drinkers were 5.13 for oral and pharyngeal cancer, 4.95 for oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, 1.44 for colorectal, 2.65 for laryngeal and 1.61 for breast cancer.
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