ArticleChild's nervous system : ChNS : official journal of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery2014
Case series and descriptive cohort studies in neurosurgery: the confusion and solution.
Article in Child's nervous system : ChNS : official journal of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 4 of them syntheses 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
23 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Prevalence of endometriosis in Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome variants: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome after COVID-19 vaccination: A systematic review.BMC cardiovascular disorders · 2024Pooled it
- Pseudarthrosis in adult and pediatric spinal deformity surgery: a systematic review of the literature and meta-analysis of incidence, characteristics, and risk factors.Neurosurgical review · 2019Pooled it
- Creating an indexing scheme for case series articles.BMC medical research methodology · 2026Article
- Goals and strategies for the indexing of publication types and study designs.Database : the journal of biological databases and curation · 2026Article
- Creating an Indexing Scheme for Case Series Articles.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- The Prevalence of Adrenal Insufficiency in Individuals with Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- A guide to interpreting systematic reviews and meta-analyses in neurosurgery and surgery.Acta neurochirurgica · 2024Review
- Management of Traumatic Nerve Palsies in Paediatric Supracondylar Humerus Fractures: A Systematic Review.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Variation of outcome reporting in studies of interventions for heavy menstrual bleeding: a systematic review.Facts, views & vision in ObGyn · 2022Article
- Antiparasitic Activity of Tea Tree Oil (TTO) and Its Components against Medically Important Ectoparasites: A Systematic Review.Pharmaceutics · 2022Review
- Recent trends in adult body mass index and prevalence of excess weight: Data from the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2022Article
- Towards zero infection for ventriculoperitoneal shunt insertion in resource-limited settings: a multicenter prospective cohort study.Child's nervous system : ChNS : official journal of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery · 2020Article
- Self-Analysis: Do I Comprehend Case Series and Cohort Studies? A Fellow's Perspective.Journal of medical toxicology : official journal of the American College of Medical Toxicology · 2019Article
- Please do not feel bad, identifying the precise study design used in clinical research may be a challenge.Clinical and experimental dental research · 2019Article
- Meningioma recurrence rates following treatment: a systematic analysis.Journal of neuro-oncology · 2018Article
- Clarifying the distinction between case series and cohort studies in systematic reviews of comparative studies: potential impact on body of evidence and workload.BMC medical research methodology · 2017Article
- What's in a Name? The Incorrect Use of Case Series as a Study Design Label in Studies Involving Dogs and Cats.Journal of veterinary internal medicine · 2017Article
- Characteristics of Modic changes in cervical kyphosis and their association with axial neck pain.Journal of pain research · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCase series (CS) are well-known designs in contemporary use in neurosurgery but are sometimes used in contexts that are incompatible with their true meaning as defined by epidemiologists. This inconsistent, inappropriate and incorrect use, and mislabeling impairs the appropriate indexing and sorting of evidence.
methodUsing PubMed, we systematically identified published articles that had "case series" in the "title" in 15 top-ranked neurosurgical journals from January 2008 to December 2012. The abstracts and/or full articles were scanned to identify those with descriptions of the principal method as being "case series" and then classified as "true case series" or "non-case series" by two independent investigators with 100 % inter-rater agreement.
resultsSixty-four articles had the label "case series" in their "titles." Based on the definition of "case series" and our appraisal of the articles using Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines, 18 articles (28.13 %) were true case series, while 46 (71.87 %) were mislabeled. Thirty-five articles (54.69 %) mistook retrospective (descriptive) cohorts for CS. CS are descriptive with an outcome-based sampling, while "descriptive cohorts" have an exposure-based sampling of patients, followed over time to assess outcome(s). A comparison group is not a defining feature of a cohort study and distinguishes descriptive from analytic cohorts.
conclusionA distinction between a case report, case series, and descriptive cohorts is absolutely necessary to enable the appropriate indexing, sorting, and application of evidence. Researchers need better training in methods and terminology, and editors and reviewers should scrutinize more carefully manuscripts claiming to be "case series" studies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
24938735What 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.