Systematic review and meta-analysis in oncology: topic selection and scientific writing

Evidence based medicine (EBM) is a useful research method and brand new theory in medical science, which has developed since the 1970s. EBM has been defined as “the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The practice of evidence based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research” (1). More recently it has been described as the “integration of best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values” (2). The 3 key phrases in this definition are “best research evidence”, “clinical expertise” and “patient values”.