Implications of OMERACT outcomes in arthritis and osteoporosis for cochrane metaanalysis.

The Cochrane Collaboration has established a set of methods for pooling multiple studies assessing the same intervention. Assessing the same endpoints in all studies is important to allow different trials to be combined using metaanalysis. OMERACT can play a key role in establishing consensus on the use of common endpoints that are credible to clinicians. We describe the data that need to be included in individual trial reports for metaanalyses to be carried out.