ReviewWorld journal of surgery2019
Reporting Quality of Journal Abstracts for Surgical Randomized Controlled Trials Before and After the Implementation of the CONSORT Extension for Abstracts.
Review in World journal of surgery, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 2 of them syntheses 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, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A multiyear systematic survey of the quality of reporting for randomised trials in dentistry, neurology and geriatrics published in journals of Spain and Latin America.BMC medical research methodology · 2021Pooled it
- Systematic review of reporting benefits and harms of surgical interventions in randomized clinical trials.BJS open · 2020Pooled it
- Trial
- Feasibility and impact of a large language model pipeline for surgical trial abstracts.NPJ digital medicine · 2026Article
- Article
- Did an introduction of CONSORT for abstracts guidelines improve reporting quality of randomised controlled trials' abstracts onBMJ open · 2022Observational
- Abstracts for reports of randomised trials of COVID-19 interventions had low quality and high spin.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2021Article
- Assessment of reporting quality in randomised controlled clinical trial abstracts of dental implantology published from 2014 to 2016.BMJ open · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAdequate reporting is crucial in full-text publications but even more so in abstracts because they are the most frequently read part of a publication. In 2008, an extension for abstracts of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT-A) statement was published, defining which items should be reported in abstracts of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Therefore, we compared the adherence of RCT abstracts to CONSORT-A before and after the publication of CONSORT-A.
methodsRCTs published in the five surgical journals with the highest impact factor were identified through PubMed for 2005-2007 and 2014-2016. Adherence to 15 CONSORT-A items and two additional items for abstracts of non-pharmacological trials was assessed in duplicate. We compared the overall adherence to CONSORT-A between the two time periods using an unpaired t test and explored adherence to specific items.
resultsA total of 192 and 164 surgical RCT abstracts were assessed (2005-2007 and 2014-2016, respectively). In the pre-CONSORT-A phase, the mean score of adequately reported items was 6.14 (95% confidence interval [CI] 5.90-6.38) and 8.11 in the post-CONSORT-A phase (95% CI 7.83-8.39; mean difference 1.97, 95% CI 1.60-2.34; p < 0.0001). The comparison of individual items indicated a significant improvement in 9 of the 15 items. The three least reported items in the post-CONSORT-A phase were randomization (2.4%), blinding (13.4%), and funding (0.0%). Specific items for non-pharmacological trials were rarely reported (approximately 10%).
conclusionThe reporting in abstracts of surgical RCTs has improved after the implementation of CONSORT-A. More importantly, there is still ample room for improvement.
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.