[The Cochrane Collaboration and the practice of evidence-based cardiology].

Evidence-based Cardiology (EBC) permits a rational and updated clinical approach to patients. The EBC practice needs credible, independent and scientifically solid information, but the sheer volume of the medical bibliography precludes individual solutions: we have too much information and what is relevant is sunk within what is irrelevant or useless. Selection, critical appraisal and synthesis of the best scientific evidence constitutes the basis of EBC. The Cochrane Collaboration is the best source of independent, updated and valid information: through published systematic reviews, the evidence is available in the format of CD-ROM, and can serve as the basis for a modern, efficient and rational cardiological practice.