Evidence-based therapy in neonatology: distilling the evidence and applying it in practice.

Three aspects of the role of clinical evidence in guiding therapy in the field of neonatology are presented: 1) what is embodied in the concept "evidence-based medicine"? 2) the contribution of the Cochrane Collaboration and its Neonatal Review Group in summarizing and disseminating evidence, in the form of systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials, concerning the benefits and risks of therapies in the field of neonatology; 3) approaches to bridging the gap between the evidence per se and the uptake and application of that evidence in practice.