ReviewNature reviews. Rheumatology2011
Bisphosphonates and esophageal cancer--a pathway through the confusion.
Review in Nature reviews. Rheumatology, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled 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.
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
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Bisphosphonate use and gastrointestinal tract cancer risk: meta-analysis of observational studies.World journal of gastroenterology · 2012Pooled it
- Expert Perspective: How, When, and Why to Potentially Stop Antiresorptive Drugs in Osteoporosis.Arthritis & rheumatology (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2025Review
- Exposure to oral bisphosphonates and risk of gastrointestinal cancer.Osteoporosis international : a journal established as result of cooperation between the European Foundation for Osteoporosis and the National Osteoporosis Foundation of the USA · 2020Article
- Use of osteoporosis medications after hospitalization for hip fracture: a cross-national study.The American journal of medicine · 2015Article
- Bisphosphonates for treatment of osteoporosis: expected benefits, potential harms, and drug holidays.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2014Review
- Does design matter? Systematic evaluation of the impact of analytical choices on effect estimates in observational studies.Therapeutic advances in drug safety · 2013Article
- Bisphosphonates and risk of upper gastrointestinal cancer--a case control study using the General Practice Research Database (GPRD).PloS one · 2012Article
- Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Two recent papers that examined the association between oral bisphosphonates and the risk of esophageal cancer reported seemingly discrepant findings, despite both studies using data from the UK General Practice Research Database, from similar time periods. Each paper set out brief conclusions within their abstracts, generating two opposing impressions: that the risk of incident esophageal cancer is not significantly increased with bisphosphonate use, or that the risk is increased when bisphosphonates have been prescribed ten or more times, or for longer than 5 years. Of course, the latter conclusion was more widely reported in the popular press, and with patients arriving at the clinic wanting to discuss the reports, clinicians must be able to interpret the existing evidence correctly. In this article we discuss important methodological issues regarding the two observational studies, define areas of consensus and discrepancy, examine possible bias and confounding, and condense the results into a clinically useful summary.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.