ReviewProceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center)2017
Heterogeneity of systematic reviews in oncology.
Review in Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center), 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Systematic reviews synthesize data across multiple studies to answer a research question, and an important component of the review process is to evaluate the heterogeneity of primary studies considered for inclusion. Little is known, however, about the ways that systematic reviewers evaluate heterogeneity, especially in clinical specialties like oncology. We examined a sample of systematic reviews from this body of literature to determine how meta-analysts assessed and reported heterogeneity. A PubMed search of 6 oncology journals was conducted to locate systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Two coders then independently evaluated the manuscripts for 10 different elements based on an abstraction manual. The initial PubMed search yielded 337 systematic reviews from 6 journals. Screening for exclusion criteria (nonsystematic reviews, genetic studies, individual patient data, etc.) found 155 articles that did not meet the definition of a systematic review. This left a final sample of 182 systematic reviews across 4 journals. Of these reviews, 50% (91/182) used varying combinations of heterogeneity tests, and of those, 16% (15/91) of review authors noted excessive heterogeneity and opted to not perform a meta-analysis. Of the studies that measured heterogeneity, 51% (46/91) used a random-effects model, 7% (8/91) used a fixed-effects model, and 43% (39/91) used both. We conclude that use of quantitative and qualitative heterogeneity measurement tools are underused in the 4 oncology journals evaluated. Such assessments should be routinely applied in meta-analyses.
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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.