Background: The Common Drug Review (CDR) program at the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) prepares clinical and pharmacoeconomic review reports on drug submissions. These reports are used by the Canadian Expert Drug Advisory Committee (CEDAC) in making listing recommendations to Canadian publicly funded drug plans. Typically, the CDR clinical report consists of three sections: systematic review (SR), supplementary issues (SI) and background information on the clinical condition (BIC). Objectives: 1) To assess the frequency of using information in Cochrane reviews; and 2) to determine the section(s) in the CDR reports in which the Cochrane information is used. Methods: The lists of references in the CDR reports from 2004 to September 2008 were examined to determine the number of Cochrane reviews used. Using the citation number ascribed to the Cochrane review in the reference list, the section in which Cochrane review was used was identified. These steps were done by one reviewer and independently verified by a second reviewer. Results: Of the first 103 CDR reports, 43 (42%) referenced Cochrane reviews. In these 43 CDR review reports, 81 different Cochrane reviews were used. Of the 81 Cochrane reviews, 21 were used in the SR section, 32 in the SI section and 28 in the BIC section. One of the 21 Cochrane reviews in the SR section was adopted as the SR used in the CDR report while the other 20 Cochrane reviews were used in the discussion section of the SRs. Conclusion: In the CDR reports, Cochrane reviews are primarily used to address the contextual issues and provide background information on the clinical condition. Because CDR reviews drugs early in their introduction to the market, Cochrane reviews are not generally available. Information from the Cochrane reviews in SI section plays an important role in informing CEDAC recommendations.