Evidence-based medicine in plastic surgery: where did it come from and where is it going?

Abstract

Objectives: Evidence-based medicine, particularly randomized controlled trials, influence many of the daily decisions within plastic surgery as well as nearly every other medical specialty, and will continue to play a larger role in medicine in the future. Even though it is certainly not a new idea, evidence-based medicine continues to remain a hot topic among members of the healthcare community. As evidence-based medicine continues to grow and evolve, it is becoming more important for all physicians to understand the fundamentals of evidence-based medicine: how evidence-based medicine has changed, and how to successfully incorporate it into the daily practice of medicine.

Results: Admittedly, the wide acceptance and implementation of evidence-based medicine has been slower in surgical fields such as plastic surgery given the difficulty in performing large scale blinded randomized controlled trials due to the inherent nature of a surgical intervention as a treatment modality. Despite these challenges, the plastic surgery literature has recently begun to respond to the demand for more evidence-based medicine.

Conclusions: Today's plastic surgeons are making a concerted embrace evidence-based medicine by increasing the amount of out of high-level clinical evidence and should be encouraged to continue to further their endeavors in the field of evidence-based medicine in the future.

Keywords: Cochrane database; evidence‐based medicine; levels of evidence; plastic surgery; randomized controlled trial.