ArticleSurgical endoscopy2020
Replicate systematic review and meta-analyses on robotic surgery: a quality appraisal and overlap investigation.
Article in Surgical endoscopy, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mind the Overlap! Meta-Analyses That Synthesize the Findings of Primary Studies Based on Large Data Registries: the Case of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.Obesity surgery · 2023Article
- Robotic transvaginal natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery for bilateral salpingo oophorectomy.European journal of obstetrics & gynecology and reproductive biology: X · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe number of publications of systematic reviews and meta-analyses (MAs) on robotic surgery have been increasing, including many investigating the same topic. Their quality and extent of overlap remains unclear. We assessed the quality of the MAs in this area and investigated the extent of their overlap.
methodsRelevant studies were identified by searching the MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library databases up to August 1, 2017. Reporting and methodological quality levels were assessed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) checklists. A thorough investigation of the extent of overlap was performed.
resultsIn total, 90 MAs in 5 surgical subspecialties were included after full-text review. The mean reporting and methodological quality scores were 22.5 (83.2%) and 7.6 (69.2%), respectively. Authors from university-affiliated institutions and the presence of statistician or epidemiologist coauthors were associated with better-reporting quality scores. The topics with the most overlapping MAs (all ≥ 6) were robot-assisted thyroidectomy, prostatectomy, gastrectomy, colectomy, and fundoplication. 36 (40%) of the included MAs cited previous MAs on the same topic. Among the 7 MAs comparing robot-assisted radical prostatectomy to the open procedure, most (6/7) drew the same conclusion. 50 to 86% of MAs on this topic included the same trials as primary studies.
conclusionConducting multiple overlapping MAs with identical conclusions on the same topic that are of suboptimal quality may be a waste of resource and effort. Authors from university-affiliated institutes and experts in epidemiology and statistics are more likely to conduct MAs that have better quality. More guidelines and registries are needed to avoid overlapping MAs.
Indexed as
Identifiers
30972621What 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.