Side effects of drugs: a review contest

Dear colleagues,
As you are well aware, active measures are being taken in Russia and in all countries of the post-Soviet space to create an effective system for collecting information about side effects of medicines in order to inform doctors and patients about the dangers of drug therapy, as well as a more complete presentation of the safety of medicinal treatments in training programs.

Moscow representative office of Rottapharm in Russia and the CIS countries in support of this important area of research and education offers funding in the form of grants, which will be awarded on the basis of a competition.

The topic of the competition: liver damage in drug therapy.The works devoted to the side effects of the following medicines are accepted for the competition:

•  nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs;
•  hormonal contraceptives;
•  antibiotics;
•  psychotropic drugs (tranquilizers, sleeping pills, antidepressants);
•  antimetabolites and immunosuppressants in rheumatoid arthritis.

The work should be presented in the form of a systematic review of the problem, i.e. a review systematically summarizing the fullness of knowledge on the problem under consideration in the light of the highest quality research.

Review requirements:1. Search for publications to be included in the review in the MEDLINE electronic database (and other databases), randomized clinical trials (RCTs) in registers ClinicalTrials.gov and others, other means.

In addition, it is assumed that the authors will make efforts to search for information about qualitative research "manually" in Russian and other medical journals that are not indexed in MEDLINE.

2. The quality assessment of all published data should be carried out according to the principles of evidence-based medicine. We would highly appreciate the application of the rigorous review methodology available in the Cochrane Collaboration Manual (www.cochrane.org )

3. The volume of the review is up to 15 printed pages, the volume of applications is not limited.

4. The project started on February 1, 2010, works are accepted until May 1, 2010 by e-mail info@rotta.ru or at the address: 117321, Moscow, Leninsky Prospekt 113/1, office 404, marked "Project".

Prize fund:1st place: $1700;

• 2nd place: $1000;
• 3rd place: $500.

The authors of the most interesting reviews will be assisted in preparing the article for publication in refereed medical journals, and then in other media.

Please send your questions to info@rotta.ru .

Details are available on the contest page.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru19.03.2010