Workshop type: Training.

Objective: To provide an introduction to the particular challenges in systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy studies as compared with systematic reviews of therapeutic studies.

Summary:
Systematic reviews of studies on the diagnostic accuracy of tests will be published in The Cochrane Library from 2008 onwards. However, there are challenging differences between systematic reviews of therapeutic and diagnostic research that need to be addressed during the planning and conductin of systematic reviews of diagnostic accuracy studies. This workshop will provide a short overview of  some of the most important differences, including  literature search, quality assessment, measures of accuracy, weighting in the analysis, threshold effects and impact of different clinical settings.

Intended audience: (i) Review authors; (ii) editors; (iii) Review Group Co-ordi nators.

Technical level expected of participants: Basic.