ReviewSpinal cord2026
Risk Factors associated with dysphagia for people with Cervical Spinal Cord Injury (cSCI): A Systematic review and Meta-analysis.
Review in Spinal cord, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
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.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
STUDY
designSystematic Review.
objectivesThis systematic review aimed to summarise evidence on the risk factors associated with dysphagia for people with Cervical Spinal Cord Injury (cSCI).
settingStudies originate from multiple countries, no single study setting applies.
methodsWe searched Medline and Embase (OVID), CENTRAL, CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Web of Science (Clarivate), ProQuest and Scopus on 16 January 2025 with an update on 27 July 2025 for prospective and retrospective cohort studies, cross-sectional and non-randomised observational longitudinal studies. These studies included patients aged ≥ 16 years with cSCI and no pre-existing oropharyngeal dysphagia or oesophageal dysphagia. Following standard Cochrane review methodology, two reviewers screened the search results and the full text papers of potentially relevant studies independently and then assessed methodological quality using Newcastle Ottawa Scale (NOS). The certainty of evidence was appraised using Grading of Recommendations, Assessments, Development and Evaluations (GRADE). Data were extracted using a piloted tool. Meta-analysis for each risk factor was conducted using RevMan, pooling Odds Ratios (ORs) from multivariate and univariate models.
resultsEighteen studies (2, 258 participants) were included. Our meta-analyses suggested that three risk factors had significant associations with dysphagia in cSCI: tracheostomy (OR = 4.91, 95% CI: 1.74 to 13.86, p = 0.003); being male (OR = 1.95, 95% CI:1.32 to 2.55, p = 0.0009) and combined anterior-posterior surgery (OR = 1.77, 95% CI: 1.17 to 2.70, p = 0.007). Other risk factors with promising but limited data included nasogastric tube presence.
conclusionsThere is very low certainty evidence that the risk factor groups of tracheostomy, male gender and combined anterior-posterior neck surgery can predict dysphagia in cSCI. More robust and large-scale research with standardised outcome measures is required to explore the independent prognostic factors of dysphagia in cSCI.
Identifiers
42649376What 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.