Evidence-based pain management and palliative care in Issue One for 2008 of the Cochrane Library.

The Cochrane Library is published quarterly. Issue 1, 2008, contains 3,385 complete reviews, 1,786 protocols for reviews in production, and 7,048 one-page summaries of systematic reviews published in the general medical literature. In addition there are citations of 527,000 randomized controlled trials, and 10,000 cited papers in the Cochrane methodology register. The health technology assessment database contains 7,177 citations. This edition of the Library contains 86 new reviews of which 7 have potential relevance for practitioners in pain and palliative medicine.