Thoma A. et al. (eds.) Evidence-Based Surgery: A Guide to Understanding and Interpreting the Surgical Literature

Springer, 2019. — 359 p. — ISBN: 978-3-030-05119-8The purpose of this book specifically is to teach surgeons (academic or community), surgical fellows and surgical residents regardless of the surgical specialty, the skills to appraise what they read in the surgical literature. Surgeons need to be able to understand what they read before applying the conclusions of a surgical article to their practice. As most surgeons do not have the extra training in health research methodology, understanding how the research was done, how to interpret the results and finally deciding to apply them to the patient level is indeed a difficult task. Chapters explain the methodological issues pertaining to the various study designs reported in the surgical literature. Most chapters begin with a clinical scenario with uncertain course of action with which most surgeons are struggling. Readers are taught how to search the literature for the best evidence that will answer the surgical problem under discussion. An identified article that seems relevant to the problem you are investigating can be appraised by addressing 3 key questions: 1). Is the study I am reading valid? 2). What are the results of this study? 3). Can I apply these results to my patients? While the primary goal of Evidence-Based Surgery is to teach surgeons how to appraise the surgical literature, an added benefit is that the concepts explained here may help research-minded surgeons produce higher quality research.History of Evidence-Based Surgery (EBS)
The Steps of Practicing Evidence-Based Surgery (EBS)
Developing a Surgical Clinical Research Question: To Find the Answer in Literature Search or in Pursuing Clinical Research
Finding the Evidence Through Searching the Literature
Hierarchy of Evidence in Surgical Research
Evaluating Surgical Interventions
A Primer on Outcome Measures for Surgical Interventions
Patient-Important Outcome Measures in Surgical Care
Surrogate Endpoints
How to Assess an Article that Deals with Health-Related Quality of Life
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Surgical Interventions
How to Assess a Pilot Trial in Surgery
Non-inferiority Randomized Controlled Trials
Expertise-Based Randomized Controlled Trials
The Surgeon’s Guide to Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Prospective and Retrospective Cohort Studies
Case-Control Studies
Evaluating Case Series in Surgery
Quality Improvement and Patient Safety in Surgery
Diagnostic Studies in Surgery
How to Assess a Prognostic Study
Decision Analysis and Surgery
Economic Evaluations in Surgery
Studies Reporting Harm in Surgery
Evaluating Surveys and Questionnaires in Surgical Research
Opinion Pieces in Surgery
Simple Statistical Tests and P Values
Confidence Intervals
Power and Sample Size
Subgroup Analyses in Surgery
Introduction to Clinical Practice Guidelines