ArticlePloS one2013
The geometric increase in meta-analyses from China in the genomic era.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The sound and surprise: overlapping meta-analyses on the topic of safety and efficacy of PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitors in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2023Pooled it
- Evaluation of Italian radiotherapy research from 1985 to 2005: preliminary analysis.La Radiologia medica · 2019Pooled it
- MetaGenyo: a web tool for meta-analysis of genetic association studies.BMC bioinformatics · 2017Pooled it
- Long noncoding RNAs as novel predictors of survival in human cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Molecular cancer · 2016Pooled it
- Triangulating meta-analyses: the example of the serotonin transporter gene, stressful life events and major depression.BMC psychology · 2016Pooled it
- What breaks when federal commitments break: comment on Beccia et al.SSM. Mental health · 2026Article
- The rapid growth in Mendelian randomization studies.European journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- More science friction for less science fiction.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Quality, topics, and demographic trends of animal systematic reviews - an umbrella review.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Review
- The proliferation of derivative and redundant studies in endocrinology due to the application of Mendelian Randomisation and other methods to open databases.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Article
- From data deluge to publomics: How AI can transform animal research.Lab animal · 2023Article
- Factors associated with successful publication for systematic review protocol registration: an analysis of 397 registered protocols.Systematic reviews · 2023Article
- COVID 19 Scoping: A Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of pharmacy & bioallied sciences · 2021Review
- Publication of meta-analyses in sleep medicine: a scoping review.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2021Article
- Current Issues on Research Conducted to Improve Women's Health.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- COVID-19 meta-analyses: a scoping review and quality assessment.Einstein (Sao Paulo, Brazil) · 2021Article
- Mendel's laws, Mendelian randomization and causal inference in observational data: substantive and nomenclatural issues.European journal of epidemiology · 2020Article
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- Ten simple rules for carrying out and writing meta-analyses.PLoS computational biology · 2019Article
- Epidemiology of systematic reviews in imaging journals: evaluation of publication trends and sustainability?European radiology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Meta-analyses are increasingly popular. It is unknown whether this popularity is driven by specific countries and specific meta-analyses types. PubMed was used to identify meta-analyses since 1995 (last update 9/1/2012) and catalogue their types and country of origin. We focused more on meta-analyses from China (the current top producer of meta-analyses) versus the USA (top producer until recently). The annual number of meta-analyses from China increased 40-fold between 2003 and 2011 versus 2.4-fold for the USA. The growth of Chinese meta-analyses was driven by genetics (110-fold increase in 2011 versus 2003). The HuGE Navigator identified 612 meta-analyses of genetic association studies published in 2012 from China versus only 109 from the USA. We compared in-depth 50 genetic association meta-analyses from China versus 50 from USA in 2012. Meta-analyses from China almost always used only literature-based data (92%), and focused on one or two genes (94%) and variants (78%) identified with candidate gene approaches (88%), while many USA meta-analyses used genome-wide approaches and raw data. Both groups usually concluded favorably for the presence of genetic associations (80% versus 74%), but nominal significance (P<0.05) typically sufficed in the China group. Meta-analyses from China typically neglected genome-wide data, and often included candidate gene studies published in Chinese-language journals. Overall, there is an impressive rise of meta-analyses from China, particularly on genetic associations. Since most claimed candidate gene associations are likely false-positives, there is an urgent global need to incorporate genome-wide data and state-of-the art statistical inferences to avoid a flood of false-positive genetic meta-analyses.
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