Handsearching the Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service for Trials

As part of the Cochrane Collaboration's international research endeavour, the authors carried out a handsearch of the Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service from 1948 to 1998, searching for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and controlled clinical trials (CCTs). Five trials were identified, of which three were RCTs and two were CCTs. The first trial was published in 1960. The identified trials were in the fields of dentistry (two trials), gastroenterology, occupational medicine and orthopaedic surgery. Of the five trials, only two had been located previously through a rigorous interrogation of Medline. The three newly identified trials were reported to the UK Cochrane Centre, and details of these three trials were entered into Medline for use by clinicians and investigators in the future.