Sometimes costly or invasive medical interventions become entrenched in clinical practice for years before they are found to be low value, ineffective or harmful.

But identifying which devices, proce­dures and practices have been contradic­ted by later evidence — known as medical reversal — is not always straightforward.

A group of researchers has set out to make this task easier by compiling a list of medical reversals for the benefit of doctors.

In the Oregon Health and Science University-led study, researchers looked at more than 3000 randomised controlled trials published in three top-tier ­medical journals — the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine — across a 14-year period.