Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38100416›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2023

Instrumental variables methods reconcile intention-to-screen effects across pragmatic cancer screening trials.

Joshua D Angrist, Peter Hull

Open access · hybridAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
4.7field-weighted citation impact, top 4% 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

5 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Review
  2. Article
  3. Atrial fibrillation screening for stroke prevention: an instrumental variables meta-analysis addressing varying participation rates.Europace : European pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac electrophysiology : journal of the working groups on cardiac pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac cellular electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology · 2025
    Article
  4. Estimating the Effects of Cancer Screening in Clinical Practice Settings: The Role of Selective Uptake and Suboptimal Adherence along the Cancer Screening Continuum.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2024
    Article
  5. Article
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

2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Joshua D AngristDepartment of Economics and National Bureau of Economic Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142.ORCID 0000-0001-6992-8956
Peter HullDepartment of Economics and National Bureau of Economic Research, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912.
National Bureau of Economic Research · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Pragmatic cancer screening trials mimic real-world scenarios in which patients and doctors are the ultimate arbiters of treatment. Intention-to-screen (ITS) analyses of such trials maintain randomization-based apples-to-apples comparisons, but differential adherence (the failure of subjects assigned to screening to get screened) makes ITS effects hard to compare across trials and sites. We show how instrumental variables (IV) methods address the nonadherence challenge in a comparison of estimates from 17 sites in five randomized trials measuring screening effects on colorectal cancer incidence. While adherence rates and ITS estimates vary widely across and within trials, IV estimates of per-protocol screening effects are remarkably consistent. An application of simple IV tools, including graphical analysis and formal statistical tests, shows how differential adherence explains variation in ITS impact. Screening compliers are also shown to have demographic characteristics similar to those of the full trial study sample. These findings argue for the clinical relevance of IV estimates of cancer screening effects.

Indexed as

Early Detection of CancerNeoplasmsHumansIntentionResearch Designadherencecausal effectsclinical trialseconometricstreatment effects

Identifiers

PMID38100416
PMCPMC10742387
OpenAlexW4389816006

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
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.