ArticlePlastic and reconstructive surgery. Global open2021
Evidence-based Plastic Surgery: Assessing Progress over Two 5-year Periods from 2009 to 2019.
Article in Plastic and reconstructive surgery. Global open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Antibiotics and Surgical Site Infection in Expander-Based Breast Reconstruction Trial (ASSERT).Annals of surgical oncology · 2026Trial
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Publications on evidence-based medicine have increased. Previous articles have examined evidence-based plastic surgery, but the latest was published in 2013. The aim of this study was to examine the trend in the number of high-evidence publications over two 5-year periods across 3 main plastic surgery journals. Further, this study aimed to quality-assess randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in the latter period.
methodsAll articles were identified using PubMed Search Tools and Single Citation Matcher. Three journals were manually screened from May 15, 2009, to May 15, 2014, and from May 16, 2014, to May 16, 2019. The reporting of RCTs was assessed using a modified Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) checklist.
resultsOf a total of 17,334 publications, 6 were meta-analyses of RCTs, 120 were other meta-analyses, and 247 were initially identified as RCTs. Although a significant increase in the number of higher-evidence publications is observed, these represent 2.09% (n = 363) of the total. An estimated 86 RCTs were eligible for quality-assessment, with the most popular sub-specialty being breast surgery (n = 30). The most highly reported criteria were inclusion/exclusion criteria and blinding (both n = 67; 77.91%), and the least reported criterion was allocation concealment (n = 21; 24.42%).
conclusionsThis study observes a positive trend in high-evidence publications. The number of RCTs published has increased significantly over a breadth of sub-specialties. The reporting of several CONSORT criteria in RCTs remains poor. Observation to standard reporting guidelines is advocated to improve the quality of reporting.
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.