ReviewClinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico2018
Top ten errors of statistical analysis in observational studies for cancer research.
Review in Clinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Impact of early palliative care according to baseline symptom severity: Secondary analysis of a cluster-randomized controlled trial in patients with advanced cancer.Cancer medicine · 2022Trial
- Environmental Mixture-Health Associations: Current Analytical Practice and Reporting Recommendations.China CDC weekly · 2026Article
- Angiotensin system inhibitors as adjunctive therapy in esophageal adenocarcinoma: hypothesis-generating insights from incidental use during trimodal treatment.Translational cancer research · 2026Article
- Association of postoperative delayed bowel function recovery with weight and muscle loss at 6 months in colorectal cancer patients.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Article
- Is the future of peer review automated?BMC research notes · 2022Article
- Causal Considerations Can Inform the Interpretation of Surprising Associations in Medical Registries.Cancer investigation · 2022Article
- Anxiety, Depression, and Colorectal Cancer Survival: Results from Two Prospective Cohorts.Journal of clinical medicine · 2020Article
- mHealth technology for ecological momentary assessment in physical activity research: a systematic review.PeerJ · 2020Article
- How often do leading biomedical journals use statistical experts to evaluate statistical methods? The results of a survey.PloS one · 2020Article
- Image Based Data Mining Using Per-voxel Cox Regression.Frontiers in oncology · 2020Article
- Statistical Accuracy in Rheumatology Research.Mediterranean journal of rheumatology · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Observational studies using registry data make it possible to compile quality information and can surpass clinical trials in some contexts. However, data heterogeneity, analytical complexity, and the diversity of aspects to be taken into account when interpreting results makes it easy for mistakes to be made and calls for mastery of statistical methodology. Some questionable research practices that include poor analytical data management are responsible for the low reproducibility of some results; yet, there is a paucity of information in the literature regarding specific statistical pitfalls of cancer studies. In addition to proposing how to avoid or solve them, this article seeks to expose ten common problematic situations in the analysis of cancer registries: convenience, dichotomization, stratification, regression to the mean, impact of sample size, competing risks, immortal time and survivor bias, management of missing values, and data dredging.
Indexed as
Identifiers
29218627What 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.