ReviewJournal of the Royal Society of Medicine2006
Comparison of reports of randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews in surgical journals: literature review.
Review in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2006. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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.
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.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- REporting quality of PilOt randomised controlled trials in surgery (REPORTS): a methodological survey protocol.BMJ open · 2024Article
- What can we learn from oncology surgical trials?Nature reviews. Clinical oncology · 2016Review
- The future of trials in surgical oncology.Nature reviews. Clinical oncology · 2015Review
- Investigating the collection and assessment of patient-reported outcome data amongst unplanned surgical hospital admissions: a feasibility study.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2015Article
- Analysing the benefits of laparoscopic hernia repair compared to open repair: A meta-analysis of observational studies.Journal of minimal access surgery · 2012Article
- Trials and tribulations: the professional development of surgical trialists.American journal of surgery · 2012Article
- Global research coaching in orthopedic surgery: seeding for an international network.Acta ortopedica brasileira · 2012Review
- Practical tips for surgical research: introduction to the series.Canadian journal of surgery. Journal canadien de chirurgie · 2010Article
- Development of the Veritas plot and its application in cardiac surgery: an evidence-synthesis graphic tool for the clinician to assess multiple meta-analyses reporting on a common outcome.Canadian journal of surgery. Journal canadien de chirurgie · 2009Review
- The state of academic cancer surgery in the UK.Molecular oncology · 2008Article
- Combined bias suppression in single-arm therapy studies.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2008Article
- Assuring quality in HPB surgery--efficacy and safety.HPB : the official journal of the International Hepato Pancreato Biliary Association · 2007Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesRandomized controlled trials and systematic reviews of such trials are the gold standard for assessing the effectiveness of interventions. There have been concerns about the anecdotal evidence underpinning many of the interventions used and introduced into surgical care. The American College of Surgeons has prioritized the need for more trials and systematic reviews of trials. To investigate the assertion that the methodological quality of studies conducted in surgery is in general poor and to assess the possible impact of new policy developments in the US, we sought to compare the number and proportion of published randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews in the leading two US and UK general surgical journals. Two reviewers systematically and independently hand searched all issues of these journals over a 12-month period to identify randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews.
designSystematic searching and independent abstraction of data from all volumes of the top two general surgical journals published in the USA and the UK in 2004.
setting519 original reports in UK journals and 616 original reports in USA journals.
main outcome measuresNumber and proportion of randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews.
resultsOverall, the proportion of randomized controlled trials in all four journals was 5.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 4.4-7.0) and 5.2% (95% CI 4.1-6.7) for systematic reviews. For journals published in the UK 29/519 (5.6%) of the publications were reports of randomized controlled trials, and for the USA journals this figure was 34/616 (5.5%); odds ratio [OR]=0.99, 95%CI 0.6-1.6; P=0.96. Systematic reviews were significantly more commonly reported in the UK journals: UK 37/519 (7.1%) versus USA 22/616 (3.6%); OR=0.48, 95%CI 0.3-0.8; P<0.01.
conclusionsThe concerns expressed almost a decade ago remain valid: there are still very few reports of randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews published in leading USA and UK surgical journals, with relatively little difference between these countries in the proportion of reported studies employing these designs. The American College of Surgeons initiative has yet to make an impact.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.