Evidence map›Paper›PMID 16533396›Full record

SynthesisBMC medical research methodology2006

Methodological quality of systematic reviews of animal studies: a survey of reviews of basic research.

Luciano E Mignini, Khalid S Khan

Abstract readComparative StudyMeta-Analysis
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Synthesis in BMC medical research methodology, 2006. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 13 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
36citing papers in PubMed, 13 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

36 citing papers in PubMed, 13 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

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  6. Importance of Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses of Animal Studies: Challenges for Animal-to-Human Translation.Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS · 2020
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  7. Systematic reviews and meta-analysis of preclinical studies: why perform them and how to appraise them critically.Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism · 2014
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  11. Pharmacologic reduction of angiographic vasospasm in experimental subarachnoid hemorrhage: systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism · 2012
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Luciano E MigniniCentro Rosarino de Estudios Perinatales, Rosario, Argentina. l.mignini@bham.ac.uk
Khalid S Khan

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundSystematic reviews can serve as a tool in translation of basic life sciences research from laboratory to human research and healthcare. The extent to which reviews of animal research are systematic and unbiased is not known.

methodsWe searched, without language restrictions, Medline, Embase, bibliographies of known reviews (1996-2004) and contacted experts to identify citations of reviews of basic science literature which, as a minimum, performed search of a publicly available resource. From these we identified reviews of animal studies where laboratory variables were measured or where treatments were administered to live animals to examine their effects, and compared them with reviews of bench studies in which human or animal tissues, cell systems or organ preparations were examined in laboratories to better understand mechanisms of diseases.

resultsSystematic reviews of animal studies often lacked methodological features such as specification of a testable hypothesis (9/30, 30%); literature search without language restriction (8/30, 26.6%); assessment of publication bias (5/30, 16.6%), study validity (15/30, 50%) and heterogeneity (10/30, 33.3%); and meta-analysis for quantitative synthesis (12/30, 40%). Compared to reviews of bench studies, they were less prone to bias as they specified the question (96.6% vs. 80%, p = 0.04), searched multiple databases (60% vs. 26.6%, p = 0.01), assessed study quality (50% vs. 20%, p = 0.01), and explored heterogeneity (33.3% vs. 2.2%, p = 0.001) more often.

conclusionThere seems to be a gradient of frequency of methodological weaknesses among reviews: Attempted systematic reviews of whole animal research tend to be better than those of bench studies, though compared to systematic reviews of human clinical trials they are apparently poorer. There is a need for rigour when reviewing animal research.

Indexed as

Disease Models, AnimalReview Literature as TopicAnimal ExperimentationAnimalsBenchmarkingData Interpretation, StatisticalHumansQuality ControlReproducibility of ResultsResearch Design

Identifiers

PMID16533396
PMCPMC1435907

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.