Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 27, 2026

Author Spotlight: Evaluating the Adjuvant Efficacy and Safety of Angong Niuhuang Pill in Viral Encephalitis Treatment
Published on: April 19, 2024
Strong heterogeneity of outcome reporting in systematic reviews
Bénédicte Sautenet1, Laetitia Contentin2, Adrien Bigot3
1Centre de Recherche Épidémiologie et Statistique Sorbonne Paris Cité - Inserm UMR 1153, 1 place du Parvis Notre-Dame, 75004 Paris, France; Service de Néphrologie et Immunologie Clinique, CHRU de Tours, 2 Boulevard Tonnellé, 37000 Tours, France; Faculté de Médecine, Université Francois Rabelais, 10 boulevard Tonnellé, 37000 Tours, France.
Objectives:
The Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trial initiative aims at developing core outcome set (COS) for research. Consensus on a COS for renoprotection research is lacking. We performed a systematic review (SR) of SRs of renoprotection to identify outcomes used in renoprotection research and to assess how frequently these outcomes could be meta-analyzed in the SRs.
Study Design And Setting:
We searched for SRs with meta-analyses of renoprotection treatments in the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects and in MEDLINE and collected outcomes that were meta-analyzed. For each outcome and SR, we assessed the proportion of trials/patients that could be meta-analyzed.
Results:
We retrieved 66 SRs. A total of 609 outcomes were extracted for 20 distinct renoprotection outcomes. The median (interquartile range) proportion of SRs in which these outcomes had been meta-analyzed was 8% (2%, 27%) (range 2-50%). The proportion of trials that had been aggregated was >75% for only 36% of the outcomes.
Conclusion:
The outcomes meta-analyzed in renoprotection trials are heterogeneous, with a low proportion of trials or patients pooled for each outcome and each SR. A COS is needed in renoprotection research to limit this waste of research. The outcomes identified in the present work could be a basis for this COS.
Related Concept Videos
Bias in Epidemiological Studies
Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast,...
Systematic Error: Methodological and Sampling Errors
Sampling errors originate from improper sampling methods or the wrong sample population. These errors can be minimized by refining the sampling strategy. Defective instruments or faulty calibrations are the sources of instrumental...
Comparing the Survival Analysis of Two or More Groups
Regression Toward the Mean
Bioequivalence Data: Statistical Interpretation