Utilization of Clinical Trials Registries in Obstetrics and Gynecology Systematic Reviews

Bibens, Michael E.; Chong, Angela; Vassar, Matt

doi:10.1097/aog.0000000000001204

Cited by 22 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Of the 137 viable articles identified in our analysis, we found that just 18 (13.1%) made use of CTRs. In comparison with findings in other fields of medicine, these findings were greater than those of anaesthesia (11.8%) and neurology (6.4%), but less than those of OB/GYN (18.4%) 21–23. In addition, it was found that despite the ever increasing number of clinical trials since the inception of the FDAAA in 2007, rising from 35 742 trials then to roughly 262 450 trials currently, researchers have consistently failed to make use of this vast amount of research in their data analysis 24.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Clinical trial registry use in minimally invasive surgical oncology systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Fuller

Bowers

Vassar

2019

BMJ EBM

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Publication bias can arise in systematic reviews when unpublished data are omitted and lead to inaccurate clinical decision making and adverse clinical outcomes. By conducting searches of clinical trial registries (CTRs), researchers can create more accurate systematic reviews and mitigate the risk of publication bias. The aims of this study are: to evaluate CTR use in systematic reviews and meta-analyses within the minimally invasive surgical oncology (MISO) literature; to conduct a search of ClinicalTrials.gov for a subset of reviews to determine if eligible trials exist that could have been used. This is a cross-sectional study of 197 systematic reviews and meta-analyses retrieved from PubMed. Of 137 included studies, 18 (13.1%) reported searching a CTR. Our ClinicalTrials.gov search revealed that of the 25 randomly selected systematic reviews that failed to conduct a trial registry search, 16 (64.0%) would have identified additional data sources. MISO systematic reviews and meta-analyses do not regularly use CTRs in their data collection, despite eligible trials being freely available.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Clinical trial registry use in minimally invasive surgical oncology systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Fuller

Bowers

Vassar

2019

BMJ EBM

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“…The movement to standardize and improve the quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the obstetric literature has gained momentum in the past decade, as evidenced by the growing collection of publications on the topic [ 46 – 50 ]. Although increased standardization of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the medical literature [ 51 ] has been improved, one aspect—methods to limit publication bias—continues to lag behind [ 6 , 7 , 9 , 52 – 54 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Analogous to current publications on the topic [ 6 , 8 , 9 ], we chose to limit our search to the 16 World Health Organization (WHO)-approved registries given the stringent requirements for clinical trial registration maintained by these registries. We also included ClinicalTrials.gov, as it appears to be the most frequently searched clinical trials registry [ 6 , 9 ]. The methods sections and any supplementary materials of each of the studies mentioning these clinical trials registries were carefully reviewed by Yerokhin and Carr to determine if the registry was searched, if usable data were found, and if the data were used for analysis in the publication.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Clinical trials registries are underused in the pregnancy and childbirth literature: a systematic review of the top 20 journals

et al. 2016

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BackgroundSystematic reviews and meta-analyses that do not include unpublished data in their analyses may be prone to publication bias, which in some cases has been shown to have deleterious consequences on determining the efficacy of interventions.MethodsWe retrieved systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in the past 8 years (January 1, 2007–December 31, 2015) from the top 20 journals in the Pregnancy and Childbirth literature, as rated by Google Scholar’s h5-index. A meta-epidemiologic analysis was performed to determine the frequency with which authors searched clinical trials registries for unpublished data.ResultsA PubMed search retrieved 372 citations, 297 of which were deemed to be either a systematic review or a meta-analysis and were included for analysis. Twelve (4 %) of these searched at least one WHO-approved clinical trials registry or clinicaltrials.gov.ConclusionSystematic reviews and meta-analyses published in pregnancy and childbirth journals do not routinely report searches of clinical trials registries. Including these registries in systematic reviews may be a promising avenue to limit publication bias if registry searches locate unpublished trial data that could be used in the systematic review.

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“…Systematic reviews were defined as studies that summarized research evidence from multiple studies and included information regarding inclusion and exclusion criteria, and search strategies. A meta-analysis was defined as a quantitative synthesis of primary study outcomes [4]. There were 293 systematic reviews and metaanalyses in our final sample, of which 292 were analyzed.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Manual search approaches used by systematic reviewers in dermatology

Vassar

Atakpo

Kash

2017

jmla

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Objective: Manual searches are supplemental approaches to database searches to identify additional primary studies for systematic reviews. The authors argue that these manual approaches, in particular hand-searching and perusing reference lists, are often considered the same yet lead to different outcomes.Methods: We conducted a PubMed search for systematic reviews in the top 10 dermatology journals (January 2006-January 2016. After screening, the final sample comprised 292 reviews. Statements related to manual searches were extracted from each review and categorized by the primary and secondary authors. Each statement was categorized as either ''Search of Reference List,'' ''Hand Search,'' ''Both,'' or ''Unclear.''Results: Of the 292 systematic reviews included in our sample, 143 reviews (48.97%) did not report a hand-search or scan of reference lists. One-hundred thirty-six reviews (46.58%) reported searches of reference lists, while 4 reviews (1.37%) reported systematic hand-searches. Three reviews (1.03%) reported use of both hand-searches and scanning reference lists. Six reviews (2.05%) were classified as unclear due to vague wording.Conclusions: Authors of systematic reviews published in dermatology journals in our study sample scanned reference lists more frequently than they conducted hand-searches, possibly contributing to biased search outcomes. We encourage systematic reviewers to routinely practice hand-searching in order to minimize bias. Well-conducted systematic reviews are the apex of the evidence hierarchy and routinely used for developing care guidelines and informing clinical decision making [1]. While each aspect of systematic review methodology is important, the search process, when thorough and well produced, leads to a set of research evidence to consider for inclusion that minimizes bias. There is a substantial body of evidence pointing to the importance of thorough and prespecified search strategies involving multiple databases to locate relevant studies and minimize the potential for publication and language bias [2]. As part of the search process, systematic reviewers often review reference lists of other studies or conduct hand-searches to identify additional primary studies. It is the authors' experience that reviewing reference lists and conducting hand-searches are often considered the same, yet we argue that these processes are quite different and lead to different outcomes.Our objective was to assess how often systematic reviewers in dermatology actually conducted handsearches when performing a systematic review.

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Utilization of Clinical Trials Registries in Obstetrics and Gynecology Systematic Reviews

Cited by 22 publications

References 11 publications

Clinical trial registry use in minimally invasive surgical oncology systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Clinical trial registry use in minimally invasive surgical oncology systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Clinical trials registries are underused in the pregnancy and childbirth literature: a systematic review of the top 20 journals

Manual search approaches used by systematic reviewers in dermatology

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