We prepare and update systematic reviews on a regular basis. Our partners are situated within the international Cochrane Collaboration and Cochrane Deutschland.

Antje Timmer is an editorial board member with the  Cochrane IBD Group and has authored several Cochrane Reviews herself. Four of these are currently being updated or have recently been published.

• Psychososocial interventions for IBD
• P. sidoides in acute respiratory tract infection.
• Azathioprin for maintenance of remissoin in ulcerative colitis.
• Anti-IL-12/23p40 (Ustekinumab, Briakinumab) for induction of remission in Crohn's disease.

 Note:

• We support the view that systematic reviews constitute original scientific work, as laid down in the position paper Initiative der AWMF. They contribute substantially to quality improvement and maintenance in clinical research and health care.  
• Systematically summarizing the available evidence before embarking on further research has been put up as a requirement, e.g. by the authors of the Lancet-Series Increasing Value Reducing Waste (2014) .
• BMBF complies with these requirements by putting up calls for funding of systematic reviews and requiring prove of evaluation of evidence in funding proposal for clinical studies.

Systematic Reviews Performed by Students

The workload for a high quality review is substantial. Straight forward systematic reviews are realistically done as master / year 5 projects the earliest and require close expert guidance. Also, independent extraction and evaluation by at least 2 trained persons is always required. Therefore, these projects can only be performed within a devoted team. As meta-analyses are commonly considered top of the (obsolete) evidence hierarchy and may impact on patient treatment and management or further research, we will not support fast reviews which are substantially substandard.

In exceptional cases with specific interest to our research foci we may be able to provide guidance  for systematic reviews as qualification thesis or collaborative project.

Please refer to our Links  or Cochrane Deutschland for further information and general advice.