ArticleJournal of veterinary internal medicine2017
What's in a Name? The Incorrect Use of Case Series as a Study Design Label in Studies Involving Dogs and Cats.
Article in Journal of veterinary internal medicine, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled 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
- Levels of Evidence, Quality Assessment, and Risk of Bias: Evaluating the Internal Validity of Primary Research.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2022Review
- Watch your language: An exploration of the use of causal wording in veterinary observational research.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2022Article
- Critically Appraised Topics (CATs) in Veterinary Medicine: Applying Evidence in Clinical Practice.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2020Review
- Please do not feel bad, identifying the precise study design used in clinical research may be a challenge.Clinical and experimental dental research · 2019Article
- An Evidence-Based Rapid Review of Surgical Techniques for Correction of Prolapsed Nictitans Glands in Dogs.Veterinary sciences · 2018Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundStudy design labels are used to identify relevant literature to address specific clinical and research questions and to aid in evaluating the evidentiary value of research. Evidence from the human healthcare literature indicates that the label "case series" may be used inconsistently and inappropriately.
objectiveOur primary objective was to determine the proportion of studies in the canine and feline veterinary literature labeled as case series that actually corresponded to descriptive cohort studies, population-based cohort studies, or other study designs. Our secondary objective was to identify the proportion of case series in which potentially inappropriate inferential statements were made.
designDescriptive evaluation of published literature.
participantsOne-hundred published studies (from 19 journals) labeled as case series.
methodsStudies were identified by a structured literature search, with random selection of 100 studies from the relevant citations. Two reviewers independently characterized each study, with disagreements resolved by consensus.
resultsOf the 100 studies, 16 were case series. The remaining studies were descriptive cohort studies (35), population-based cohort studies (36), or other observational or experimental study designs (13). Almost half (48.8%) of the case series or descriptive cohort studies, with no control group and no formal statistical analysis, included inferential statements about the efficacy of treatment or statistical significance of potential risk factors.
conclusionsAuthors, peer-reviewers, and editors should carefully consider the design elements of a study to accurately identify and label the study design. Doing so will facilitate an understanding of the evidentiary value of the results.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What 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.