ReviewBMC medical research methodology2016
Assessing variability in results in systematic reviews of diagnostic studies.
Review in BMC medical research methodology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 11 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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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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.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 11 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Diagnostic accuracy of rapid and point-of-care tests forFrontiers in parasitology · 2026Pooled it
- Comparison of the Diagnostic Accuracies of Procalcitonin and C-Reactive Protein for Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis in Patients with Cirrhosis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Pooled it
- Ultrasound for the diagnosis of malrotation and volvulus in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Archives of disease in childhood · 2021Pooled it
- Diagnostic performances of common nucleic acid tests for SARS-CoV-2 in hospitals and clinics: a systematic review and meta-analysis.The Lancet. Microbe · 2021Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Assessment of C-Reactive Protein Diagnostic Test Accuracy for Late-Onset Infection in Newborn Infants: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.JAMA pediatrics · 2020Pooled it
- Effect of Xpert MTB/RIF on clinical outcomes in routine care settings: individual patient data meta-analysis.The Lancet. Global health · 2019Pooled it
- C-reactive protein for diagnosing late-onset infection in newborn infants.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2019Pooled it
- Use of risk assessment instruments to predict violence in forensic psychiatric hospitals: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2018Pooled it
- Diagnostic accuracy of detection and quantification of HBV-DNA and HCV-RNA using dried blood spot (DBS) samples - a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC infectious diseases · 2017Pooled it
- Diagnostic accuracy of serological diagnosis of hepatitis C and B using dried blood spot samples (DBS): two systematic reviews and meta-analyses.BMC infectious diseases · 2017Pooled it
- Evaluation of the clinical utility of medical tests in chronic urticaria.The journal of allergy and clinical immunology. Global · 2026Article
- Evaluating Rabies Test Accuracy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Human and Canine Diagnostic Methods.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- From Serendipity to Precision: Integrating AI, Multi-Omics, and Human-Specific Models for Personalized Neuropsychiatric Care.Biomedicines · 2025Review
- Examining the relationship between cardiometabolic risk factors and telomere length in women: a systematic review.Innovation in aging · 2025Review
- Endoscopists performance in optical diagnosis of colorectal polyps in artificial intelligence studies.United European gastroenterology journal · 2022Review
- Preferred reporting items for journal and conference abstracts of systematic reviews and meta-analyses of diagnostic test accuracy studies (PRISMA-DTA for Abstracts): checklist, explanation, and elaboration.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTo describe approaches used in systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy studies for assessing variability in estimates of accuracy between studies and to provide guidance in this area.
methodsMeta-analyses of diagnostic test accuracy studies published between May and September 2012 were systematically identified. Information on how the variability in results was investigated was extracted.
resultsOf the 53 meta-analyses included in the review, most (n=48; 91%) presented variability in diagnostic accuracy estimates visually either through forest plots or ROC plots and the majority (n=40; 75%) presented a test or statistical measure for the variability. Twenty-eight reviews (53%) tested for variability beyond chance using Cochran's Q test and 31 (58%) reviews quantified it with I(2). 7 reviews (13%) presented between-study variance estimates (τ(2)) from random effects models and 3 of these presented a prediction interval or ellipse to facilitate interpretation. Half of all the meta-analyses specified what was considered a significant amount of variability (n=24; 49%).
conclusionsApproaches to assessing variability in estimates of accuracy varied widely between diagnostic test accuracy reviews and there is room for improvement. We provide initial guidance, complemented by an overview of the currently available approaches.
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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.