Background The ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines are widely endorsed but compliance is limited. We sought to determine whether journal-requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist improves full compliance with the guidelines. Methods In a randomised controlled trial, manuscripts reporting in vivo animal research submitted to PLOS ONE (March–June 2015) were randomly allocated to either requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist or current standard practice. Authors, academic editors, and peer reviewers were blinded to group allocation. Trained reviewers performed outcome adjudication in duplicate by assessing manuscripts against an operationalised version of the ARRIVE guidelines that consists 108 items. Our primary outcome was the between-group differences in the proportion of manuscripts meeting all ARRIVE guideline checklist subitems. Results We randomised 1689 manuscripts (control: n = 844, intervention: n = 845), of which 1269 were sent for peer review and 762 (control: n = 340; intervention: n = 332) accepted for publication. No manuscript in either group achieved full compliance with the ARRIVE checklist. Details of animal husbandry (ARRIVE subitem 9b) was the only subitem to show improvements in reporting, with the proportion of compliant manuscripts rising from 52.1 to 74.1% ( X 2 = 34.0, df = 1, p = 2.1 × 10 −7 ) in the control and intervention groups, respectively. Conclusions These results suggest that altering the editorial process to include requests for a completed ARRIVE checklist is not enough to improve compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines. Other approaches, such as more stringent editorial policies or a targeted approach on key quality items, may promote improvements in reporting. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s41073-019-0069-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

We report a systematic review and meta-analysis of research using animal models of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN). We systematically searched 5 online databases in September 2012 and updated the search in November 2015 using machine learning and text mining to reduce the screening for inclusion workload and improve accuracy. For each comparison, we calculated a standardised mean difference (SMD) effect size, and then combined effects in a random-effects meta-analysis. We assessed the impact of study design factors and reporting of measures to reduce risks of bias. We present power analyses for the most frequently reported behavioural tests; 337 publications were included. Most studies (84%) used male animals only. The most frequently reported outcome measure was evoked limb withdrawal in response to mechanical monofilaments. There was modest reporting of measures to reduce risks of bias. The number of animals required to obtain 80% power with a significance level of 0.05 varied substantially across behavioural tests. In this comprehensive summary of the use of animal models of CIPN, we have identified areas in which the value of preclinical CIPN studies might be increased. Using both sexes of animals in the modelling of CIPN, ensuring that outcome measures align with those most relevant in the clinic, and the animal’s pain contextualised ethology will likely improve external validity. Measures to reduce risk of bias should be employed to increase the internal validity of studies. Different outcome measures have different statistical power, and this can refine our approaches in the modelling of CIPN.

ObjectiveTo determine whether a change in editorial policy, including the implementation of a checklist, has been associated with improved reporting of measures which might reduce the risk of bias.MethodsThe study protocol has been published at doi: 10.1007/s11192-016-1964-8.DesignObservational cohort study.PopulationArticles describing research in the life sciences published in Nature journals, submitted after 1 May 2013.InterventionMandatory completion of a checklist during manuscript revision.Comparators(1) Articles describing research in the life sciences published in Nature journals, submitted before May 2013; and (2) similar articles in other journals matched for date and topic.Primary outcomeThe primary outcome is change in the proportion of Nature articles describing in vivo research published before and after May 2013 reporting the ‘Landis 4’ items (randomisation, blinding, sample size calculation and exclusions). We included 448 Nature Publishing Group (NPG) articles (223 published before May 2013, and 225 after) identified by an individual hired by NPG for this specific task, working to a standard procedure; and an independent investigator used PubMed ‘Related Citations’ to identify 448 non-NPG articles with a similar topic and date of publication from other journals; and then redacted all articles for time-sensitive information and journal name. Redacted articles were assessed by two trained reviewers against a 74-item checklist, with discrepancies resolved by a third.Results394 NPG and 353 matching non-NPG articles described in vivo research. The number of NPG articles meeting all relevant Landis 4 criteria increased from 0/203 prior to May 2013 to 31/181 (16.4%) after (two-sample test for equality of proportions without continuity correction, Χ²=36.2, df=1, p=1.8×10−9). There was no change in the proportion of non-NPG articles meeting all relevant Landis 4 criteria (1/164 before, 1/189 after). There were more substantial improvements in the individual prevalences of reporting of randomisation, blinding, exclusions and sample size calculations for in vivo experiments, and less substantial improvements for in vitro experiments.ConclusionThere was an improvement in the reporting of risks of bias in in vivo research in NPG journals following a change in editorial policy, to a level that to our knowledge has not been previously observed. However, there remain opportunities for further improvement.

Background and aims: Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) can be a severely disabling side-effect of commonly used cancer chemotherapeutics, requiring cessation or dose reduction, impacting on survival and quality of life. Our aim was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of research using animal models of CIPN to inform robust experimental design. Methods: We systematically searched 5 online databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Citation Index, Biosis Previews and Embase (September 2012) to identify publications reporting in vivo CIPN modelling. Due to the number of publications and high accrual rate of new studies, we ran an updated search November 2015, using machine-learning and text mining to identify relevant studies. All data were abstracted by two independent reviewers. For each comparison we calculated a standardised mean difference effect size then combined effects in a random effects metaanalysis. The impact of study design factors and reporting of measures to reduce the risk of bias was assessed. We ran power analysis for the most commonly reported behavioural tests. Results: 341 publications were included. The majority (84%) of studies reported using male animals to model CIPN; the most commonly reported strain was Sprague Dawley rat. In modelling experiments, Vincristine was associated with the greatest increase in pain-related behaviour (-3.22 SD [-3.88; -2.56], n=152, p=0). The most commonly reported outcome measure was evoked limb withdrawal to mechanical monofilaments. Pain-related complex behaviours were rarely reported. The number of animals required to obtain 80% power with a significance level of 0.05 varied substantially across behavioural tests. Overall, studies were at moderate risk of bias, with modest reporting of measures to reduce the risk of bias. Conclusions: Here we provide a comprehensive summary of the field of animal models of CIPN and inform robust experimental design by highlighting measures to increase the internal and external validity of studies using animal models of CIPN. Power calculations and other factors, such as clinical relevance, should inform the choice of outcome measure in study design.

BackgroundResearchers who perform systematic searches across multiple databases often identify duplicate publications. Identifying such duplicates (“deduplication”) can be extremely time-consuming, but failure to remove these citations can, in the worst instance, lead to the wrongful inclusion of duplicate data. Many existing tools are not sensitive enough, lack interoperability with other tools, are not freely accessible, or are difficult to use without programming knowledge. Here, we report the performance of our Automated Systematic Search Deduplicator (ASySD), a novel tool to perform automated deduplication of systematic searches for biomedical reviews.MethodsWe evaluated ASySD’s performance on 5 unseen biomedical systematic search datasets of various sizes (1,845 – 79,880 citations), which had been deduplicated by human reviewers. We compared the performance of ASySD with Endnote’s automated deduplication option and with the Systematic Review Accelerator Deduplication Module (SRA-DM).ResultsASySD identified more duplicates than either SRA-DM or Endnote, with a sensitivity in different datasets of 0.95 to 0.99. The false-positive rate was comparable to human performance, with a specificity of 0.94-0.99. The tool took less than 1 hour to deduplicate all datasets.ConclusionsFor duplicate removal in biomedical systematic reviews, ASySD is a highly sensitive, reliable, and time-saving tool. It is open source and freely available online as both an R package and a user-friendly web application.