| Summary: | The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requested that AHRQ commission an evidence report to assist CMS and the Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee in considering treatments for nonunion fractures. On June 16th 2005, AHRQ issued a Statement of Work (SOW) contracting ECRI to prepare a report on the role of bone growth stimulating devices and orthobiologics in healing nonunion fractures. The SOW specified that ECRI perform a narrative review of background information and surgical therapy and a systematic review of bone growth stimulating devices and orthobiologics. For the systematic review, the tasks to be performed were the following: 1. Systematically search, review, and analyze the relevant scientific evidence for each question. Search MEDLINE and other suitable databases containing primary studies and review literature relevant to the questions to be addressed. Identify other sources of relevant literature, such as meeting abstracts and clinical trials currently in progress.2. Retrieve and review full articles on eligible studies, assessing quality and extracting key data from each eligible study.3. Prepare abbreviated evidence tables and summary of important findings
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