'Conclusion: The contribution of animal studies to clinical medicine requires urgent formal evaluation. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the existing animal experiments

would represent an important step forward in this

process. Systematic reviews (particularly cumulative

meta-analyses of ongoing experiments22) could more

efficiently determine when a valid conclusion has been

reached from the animal studies. The UK Medical

Research Council requires researchers who are

planning clinical trials to reference systematic reviews

of previous related work.23 A requirement to reference,

or where necessary conduct, systematic reviews of

relevant animal studies before clinical trials would

make it difficult to disregard or selectively cite the evidence

from animal studies, or for animal and human

trials to proceed simultaneously.

By ensuring that animal experiments do not set out

to answer questions that have already been answered,

systematic reviews support the principle of reduction.

This principle, outlined in the “three Rs,” (reduction

and replacement of animals and refinement of procedures),

is held to be a cornerstone of animal research.24

Systematic reviews would also be relevant in veterinary

medicine to evaluate the efficacy of treatments for sick

animals.

Systematic reviews of animal research would

increase the precision of estimated treatment effects

used in calculating the power of proposed human

trials, reducing risk of false negative results. They are

able to throw light on the process of translation (or its

lack) between animal and clinical research as well

offering the opportunity to review the appropriateness

of the animal models used. Finally, the results of the

animal and human research need to be compared to

see how well one predicts the other.'

Pound P et al, Where is the evidence that animal research benefits humans? BMJ 2004

'Systematic reviews and meta-analyses, such as those published by the Cochrane Library, are routinely used to assess clinical treatment trials but are currently underutilized in assessment of preclinical studies, despite urgent need for such assessment given limited understanding of how therapeutic testing in animals can be projected to humans. Standardization of methods for conducting and reporting experimental preclinical trials would facilitate formal statistical analysis of the data and an understanding of the significance of the results, in addition to informing the process of prediction between experimental models and from models to patients.'

Trevitt CR. Collinge J, A systematic review of prion therapeutics in experimental models. Brain. 2006 Sep;129(Pt 9):2241-65