Cochrane Clinical Answers and living systematic reviews

Living systematic reviews are constantly updated. Searches are run each month, and any new studies identified during these searches are incorporated immediately. These are becoming increasingly common and have the advantage of keeping a systematic review as up to date as possible.

The Cochrane Clinical Answers (CCA) team screen for new and updated Cochrane Reviews every month, updating existing CCAs whenever an updated version is identified. The introduction of living systematic reviews therefore poses a challenge for the CCA team, as they will appear in these searches every month. To ensure CCAs for living systematic reviews are also as up to date as possible, we check these reviews each month, and update the CCA if the review has either:

• An increase in the number of included studies of ≥ 10%
• A change in conclusions regardless of the number of new studies
• GRADE assessments/Summary of Findings table added

Where none of these conditions are met over a 12-month period, we will update annually.

Get involved

If you are a practicing physician or allied healthcare professional with sufficient clinical experience to be able to advise the CCA editorial team within your area of expertise, and would like to learn more about joining the Cochrane Clinical Answer authoring team as an Associate Editor or Clinical Advisor, please send a brief CV to the CCA team at [email protected].