Background: Identifying optimal allocation of available resources to maximise health is a key challenge of healthcare systems. A major problem limiting the use of economic evidence to inform decisions is the quality of economic evaluations, particularly estimates of effects and incremental differences in resource use that are used in economic models. Cochrane reviews can help to improve the use of economic evidence by providing evidence of incremental differences in resource use and assessments of the quality of that evidence, as well as estimates of effect. Objectives: To compare different methods of assessing the quality of evidence of differences in resources use in the context of a Cochrane review. Methods: For this pilot study, we used a Cochrane review of antibiotic prophylaxis to reduce respiratory tract infections and mortality in adults receiving intensive care. We identified included studies that reported resource use. One of us (MB) used a predefined protocol to extract data describing economic components of the studies applying the three methods proposed in the new Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions to evaluate the quality of economic evidence in Cochrane reviews (the Drummond, Evers and Philips checklists). We also assessed the risk of bias for outcomes in the included studies, including resource use, using the new Cochrane ’Risk of bias’ tool. Results: The systematic review included 37 RCTs, of which 19 reported resource use. Six of these contained information on length of hospital stay only and 13 presented information on resource use and costs. The Philips checklist was not used since none of the included studies used economic modelling. We found differences between the quality evaluations using the Drummond and Evers checklists and the Cochrane ‘Risk of bias’ tool. Conclusions: This pilot study showed differences between different methods for the evaluation of the quality of economic evidence. The advice in the current edition of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions does not adequately support reviewers in deciding which checklist to use. This pilot study also suggests the importance for reviewers to be explicit about the lack of information on resource use which is common in primary studies.