The Cochrane Cancer Network: deliverables for the developing world.

The health care providers in the developing world have an uphill task of catering to the growing health care needs of a growing as well as graying population, all within the constraints of limited resources. While rapid and sustained growth in the economy and pharmaceutical industry in some developing countries like India is very opportune, the trickle-down effect of the economic growth may take a long time to diffuse the health care disparities in the society. In fact, the changing demography and life style may accelerate the looming epidemic of several chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. One of the ways by which the medical community could facilitate the development of effective and sustainable public health policies is by collating, promoting and implementing high quality evidence regarding the clinical effectiveness of medical interventions relevant to their practice. It seems that the British epidemiologist Archie Cochrane could foresee the explosion of medical technology and designer drugs and how it could possibly fuel craving for medical interventions that were either not proven or were not cost effective. In his book Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services, published in 1972, he highlighted the need for medical profession to seriously consider the issue of collating high quality evidence from randomized controlled trials in order to facilitate rational and equitable use of resources. Writing in 1979, Cochrane commented: " It is surely a great criticism of our profession that we have not organized a critical summary, by specialty or subspecialty, adapted periodically, of all relevant randomized controlled trials. " (Cochrane AL. 1931-1971: A critical review, with particular reference to the medical profession. Archie Cochrane died in 1988, but his encouragement and the endorsement of his views by others, led to the opening of the first Cochrane centre in Oxford in 1992 and ultimately to the founding of The Editorial Cochrane Collaboration in 1993. This international not-for-profit organization strives to help people make well-informed decisions about health care by facilitating, maintaining and promoting access to systematic reviews of the effects of health care interventions. Systematic reviews make an important contribution to improved patient care by providing unbiased and reliable evidence of effects and effectiveness of interventions and by identifying treatment effects not apparent when single clinical trials are considered in isolation. With over 90 bases around the world, the Cochrane Collaboration operates as a global network and plays a leading role …