Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37817607›Full record

ReviewJournal of zoo and wildlife medicine : official publication of the American Association of Zoo Veterinarians2023

THE VALUE OF N-OF-1 DATA IN ZOOLOGICAL MEDICINE: A METHODOLOGICAL REVIEW.

Charles O Cummings, Jessica Eisenbarth, David D R Krucik

Open access · greenAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Journal of zoo and wildlife medicine : official publication of the American Association of Zoo Veterinarians, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
0.3field-weighted citation impact, top 35% of its field
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed, 1 citations in OpenAlex.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Charles O CummingsTufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA 02111, USA, cummings3793@gmail.com.
Jessica EisenbarthDepartment of Clinical Sciences, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, North Grafton, MA 01536, USA.
David D R KrucikDepartment of Comparative Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Stanford University · USTufts University · US

Funding

CTSA Graduate ProgramTL1TR002546 · NCATS · TUFTS UNIVERSITY BOSTON · PI KENT, DAVID M · 2018 to 2022
$4.2M
Comparative Medicine Biosciences Training ProgramT32OD011121 · OD · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · PI BUCKMASTER, PAUL S. · 2012 to 2025
$3.2M
NCATS NIH HHS TL1 TR002546NIH HHS T32 OD011121
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

N-of-1 data are unavoidable in zoological medicine. Accordingly, zoological medicine clinicians and investigators need research techniques that can make use of these data. This article reviews two methodologies for using both observational and experimental N-of-1 data: 1) systematic reviews and meta-analyses of case reports and 2) prospective N-of-1 trials. Systematic reviews of case reports and other observational evidence are formal, unbiased summaries of the clinical characteristics of a particular disease-taxon combination. They offer advantages to narrative reviews by minimizing omission of relevant articles, thereby reducing the potential for mischaracterization of the literature. Meta-analyses are extensions of systematic reviews that quantitatively synthesize the data from the included articles. Although valuable, systematic reviews and meta-analyses of case reports can have limited interpretations due to publication bias and confounding present in their source materials. In contrast to case reports, N-of-1 trials are prospective study designs that allow clinicians to make strong inferences about the effect of an intervention in a particular patient. They are double-blinded, single-patient, multicrossover studies that are of particular value in fields where it is difficult to recruit sufficient patients for conventional randomized control trials (RCTs), such as zoological medicine. Because they require multiple crossover periods, N-of-1 trials are ideal for evaluating short-acting interventions in patients with somewhat stable chronic diseases, such as osteoarthritis. More complex than conventional therapeutic trials, N-of-1 trials require prior consideration of how to achieve blinding, appropriate placebo controls, quantitative primary outcomes, analysis methods, and ethical approval. Aggregation of N-of-1 trials allows estimation of the average treatment effect across the population with fewer participants than a conventional RCT. Although systematic reviews and meta-analyses of case reports can be used to synthesize the observational N-of-1 data already in existence, N-of-1 trials offer an exciting way to prospectively generate strong evidence that will be useful for evidence-based decision-making.

Indexed as

Systematic Reviews as TopicAnimalsChronic Disease

Identifiers

PMID37817607
PMCPMC10750498
OpenAlexW4387334284

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceTDM
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.