ArticleScientific reports2021
Insufficient transparency of statistical reporting in preclinical research: a scoping review.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 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
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Photobiomodulation therapy on skeletal muscles exposed to diabetes mellitus: a systematic review of animal studies.Lasers in medical science · 2023Pooled it
- Article
- Using LLM-generated tools to extract information about reporting statistical software in biomedical and health science research articles.BMC research notes · 2026Article
- Comment to: Sandwich parastomal hernia repair.Updates in surgery · 2025Article
- Personalized and genetically engineered animal models for next-generation surgical implant validation.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2025Review
- Recommendations for a Complete Reporting of Statistical Methods in Veterinary Pharmacology.Journal of veterinary pharmacology and therapeutics · 2025Review
- Better statistical reporting does not lead to statistical rigour: lessons from two decades of pseudoreplication in mouse-model studies of neurological disorders.Molecular autism · 2025Article
- Evaluating Study Design Rigor in Preclinical Cardiovascular Research: A Replication Study.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- CSL-Tox: an open-source analytical framework for the comparison of short-term and long-term toxicity end points and assessing the need of chronic studies in drug development.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- How to write statistical analysis section in medical research.Journal of investigative medicine : the official publication of the American Federation for Clinical Research · 2022Article
- Between two stools: preclinical research, reproducibility, and statistical design of experiments.BMC research notes · 2022Article
- Statistical practice and transparent reporting in the neurosciences: Preclinical motor behavioral experiments.PloS one · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Non-transparent statistical reporting contributes to the reproducibility crisis in life sciences, despite guidelines and educational articles regularly published. Envisioning more effective measures for ensuring transparency requires the detailed monitoring of incomplete reporting in the literature. In this study, a systematic approach was used to sample 16 periodicals from the ISI Journal Citation Report database and to collect 233 preclinical articles (including both in vitro and animal research) from online journal content published in 2019. Statistical items related to the use of location tests were quantified. Results revealed that a large proportion of articles insufficiently describe tests (median 44.8%, IQR [33.3-62.5%], k = 16 journals), software (31%, IQR [22.3-39.6%]) or sample sizes (44.2%, IQR [35.7-55.4%]). The results further point at contradictory information as a component of poor reporting (18.3%, IQR [6.79-26.7%]). No detectable correlation was found between journal impact factor and the quality of statistical reporting of any studied item. The under-representation of open-source software (4.50% of articles) suggests that the provision of code should remain restricted to articles that use such packages. Since mounting evidence indicates that transparency is key for reproducible science, this work highlights the need for a more rigorous enforcement of existing guidelines.
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.