Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27980603›Full record

ArticleJournal of occupational medicine and toxicology (London, England)2016

A diagnostic bias might be a much simpler explanation for the apparently elevated risk for nasopharyngeal cancer with respect to formaldehyde.

Matthias Möhner, Andrea Wendt

Open access · goldAbstract readEditorial
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of occupational medicine and toxicology (London, England), 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
0.9field-weighted citation impact, top 24% of its field
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Matthias MöhnerFederal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Division Work and Health, Nöldnerstr. 40-42, 10317 Berlin, Germany.
Andrea WendtFederal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Division Work and Health, Nöldnerstr. 40-42, 10317 Berlin, Germany.
Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health · DE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In 2009, a working group of the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified formaldehyde as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1) and concluded that formaldehyde causes cancer of the nasopharynx (NPC) and leukemia. The results of a large cohort study of industrial workers exposed to formaldehyde, conducted by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, mainly contributed to the available body of epidemiologic evidence. In their recent updated re-analysis of these cohort data published in your journal, Dr Marsh and his colleagues concluded that the results of the original analysis of NPC-risk are misleading because they are based on inappropriate regression analyses. In our view the reason for the elevated NPC risk reported in the original analysis might be also another one - a diagnostic bias. Therefore, it would be very helpful if the authors provided results for all other sub-categories (as three-digit categories of the International Classification of Diseases) of the pharynx to verify the hypothesis described and, hence, to clarify the relationship between exposure to formaldehyde and the risk of NPC.

Indexed as

Cohort studyDiagnostic biasFormaldehydeNasopharyngeal cancerStandardized mortality ratio

Identifiers

PMID27980603
PMCPMC5139126
OpenAlexW2560255367

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.