Emotional or evidence-based medicine: is there a moral tragedy in haemostatic therapy?
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* Corresponding author: Sibylle Kozek-Langenecker sibylle.kozek@aon.at
1 Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, Evangelical Hospital Vienna, Hans-Sachs-Gasse 10-12, 1180 Vienna, Austria
2 Haemostasis Research Unit, Centre for Haemostasis and Thrombosis, Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital & King's College London School of Medicine, Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7EH, UK
3 Centre for Haemophilia and Thrombosis, Aarhus University Hospital, Brendstrupgårdsvej 100, Skejby 8200, Denmark
4 University of Maryland School of Medicine, Department of Pathology, 10 South Pine Street, MSTF, Baltimore, MD 21201-1192, USA
5 Institute of Anaesthesiology, University Hospital Zurich, Raemistrasse 100, 8091 Zurich, Switzerland
Critical Care 2011, 15:462 doi:10.1186/cc10583
See related research by Kozek-Langenecker et al., http://ccforum.com/content/15/5/R239 and related commentary by Stanworth and Hunt, http://ccforum.com/content/15/6/1006.
Published: 29 December 2011First paragraph (this article has no abstract)
We strongly recommend that critical evaluation of medical practice is based on evidence rather than emotional reaction. Surprisingly, Stanworth and Hunt [1] seem to resort to the latter in response to our review [2]. Their questioning of ethics and morals appears unjustified, since we fully acknowledged multiple, serious limitations of the current evidence and methodologies within our review. They claim 'the danger of this review is that the message supports a move toward greater use of fibrinogen concentrate without proper evaluation' [1], ignoring our final statement that 'more high-quality, prospective studies are required before any definitive conclusions can be drawn' [2].