ReviewJournal of Cancer2020
Statistics and pitfalls of trend analysis in cancer research: a review focused on statistical packages.
Review in Journal of Cancer, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 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
22 citing papers in PubMed, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Therapeutic Horizon in Multiple Myeloma: Analysis of the Emerging Landscape of Clinical Trials.Therapeutic innovation & regulatory science · 2026Article
- The Gut Microbiome of the Goitered Gazelle Enables Plasticity by Responding to Environmental Factors in the Qaidam Basin.Biology · 2026Article
- Trends and spatial distribution of pediatric second-dose COVID-19 vaccination coverage: a temporal analysis, Brazil, 2022-2023.Epidemiologia e servicos de saude : revista do Sistema Unico de Saude do Brasil · 2026Article
- Long-term trends and projections of stomach cancer burden in China: Insights from the GBD 2021 study.PloS one · 2025Article
- Burden, Trends, Risk Factors, and Forecast of Ischemic Heart Disease, Rheumatic Heart Disease, and Atrial Fibrillation and Flutter From 1990 to 2040: A Comparative Analysis of China, the United States, and Europe Based on the Global Burden of Disease Study and the Potential Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic.Vascular health and risk management · 2025Article
- The disease burden of pneumoconiosis in China from 1990 to 2021 and projection to 2050 based on GBD 2021: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Trends in age-specific incidence, mortality, and DALYs of female breast cancer from 1990 to 2021.Aging medicine (Milton (N.S.W)) · 2024Article
- Trends in incidence and mortality of early-onset cancer in Germany between 1999 and 2019.European journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Trends in mortality from non-natural causes in children and adolescents (0-19 years) in Europe from 2000 to 2018.BMC public health · 2023Article
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- High-throughput proteomics: a methodological mini-review.Laboratory investigation; a journal of technical methods and pathology · 2022Review
- Towards the achievement of universal health coverage in the Democratic Republic of Congo: does the Country walk its talk?BMC health services research · 2022Article
- Changing Trends in the Proportional Incidence and Five-year Net Survival of Screened and Non-screened Breast Cancers among Women During 1995-2011 in England.Journal of clinical and translational pathology · 2022Article
- Multivariable-adjusted trends in mortality due to alcoholic liver disease among adults in the United States, from 1999-2017.American journal of translational research · 2022Article
- Worldwide long-term trends in the incidence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease during 1990-2019: A joinpoint and age-period-cohort analysis.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2022Article
- Trend analysis of drug overdose deaths before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.American journal of translational research · 2022Article
- Trends in treatments for prostate cancer in the United States, 2010-2015.American journal of cancer research · 2021Article
- Associations of Stay-at-Home Order and Face-Masking Recommendation with Trends in Daily New Cases and Deaths of Laboratory-Confirmed COVID-19 in the United States.Exploratory research and hypothesis in medicine · 2020Article
- State heterogeneity in the associations of human mobility with COVID-19 epidemics in the European Union.American journal of translational research · 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
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Trend analysis is the analysis using statistical models to estimate and predict potential trends over time, space or any independent continuous-variable. It has been widely used in epidemiology and public health, but much less so in clinical oncology and basic cancer research. Methodological imitations of the chosen statistical package also appear to result in biased or less rigorous interrogation of cancer-related data. We thus review the basic statistics of trend analysis, commonly used commands of statistical packages and the common pitfalls of conducting trend analysis. Four free and 3 commercial statistical-packages were discussed in depth, including Joinpoint, Epi info, R package, Python, SAS, Stata and SPSS. We hope that this review could serve as a practical yet concise guide for using statistical packages for trend analysis in translational and clinical oncology, and help improve the scientific rigor of trend analyses in these fields. The guide, however, may also be applied to other research fields.
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.