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Low Reporting Quality of the Meta-Analyses in Diagnostic Pathology
Xulei Liu, Michael Kinzler, Jiangfan Yuan
1From the Department of Biostatistics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee (Dr Liu); the Department of Biology, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York (Mr Kinzler); the Department of Pathology, University Medical Center of Princeton, Plainsboro, New Jersey (Mr Kinzler and Dr Zhang); the Office of Patient-Physician Relationship, Jishuitan Hospital, Beijing, China (Dr Yuan); the Department of Institute of Health, Kunming Medical University, Kuming, China (Dr He); the Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California (Dr He); the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Brunswick (Dr Zhang); the Department of Pathology, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey (Dr Zhang); and the Department of Chemical Biology, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey (Dr Zhang).
Context:
- Little is known regarding the reporting quality of meta-analyses in diagnostic pathology.
Objective:
- To compare reporting quality of meta-analyses in diagnostic pathology and medicine and to examine factors associated with reporting quality of diagnostic pathology meta-analyses.
Design:
- Meta-analyses were identified in 12 major diagnostic pathology journals without specifying years and 4 major medicine journals in 2006 and 2011 using PubMed. Reporting quality of meta-analyses was evaluated using the 27-item checklist of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement published in 2009. A higher PRISMA score indicates higher reporting quality.
Results:
- Forty-one diagnostic pathology meta-analyses and 118 medicine meta-analyses were included. Overall, reporting quality of meta-analyses in diagnostic pathology was lower than that in medicine (median [interquartile range] = 22 [15, 25] versus 27 [23, 28], P < .001). Compared with medicine meta-analyses, diagnostic pathology meta-analyses less likely reported 23 of the 27 items (85.2%) on the PRISMA checklist, but more likely reported the data items. Higher reporting quality of diagnostic pathology meta-analyses was associated with recent publication years (later than 2009 versus 2009 or earlier, P = .002) and non-North American first authors (versus North American, P = .001), but not journal publisher's location (P = .11). Interestingly, reporting quality was not associated with adjusted citation ratio for meta-analyses in either diagnostic pathology or medicine (P = .40 and P = .09, respectively).
Conclusions:
- Meta-analyses in diagnostic pathology had lower reporting quality than those in medicine. Reporting quality of diagnostic pathology meta-analyses is linked to publication year and first author's location, but not to journal publisher's location or article's adjusted citation ratios. More research and education on meta-analysis methodology may improve the reporting quality of diagnostic pathology meta-analyses.
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