115
Views
8
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Review

Reporting bias and other biases affecting systematic reviews and meta-analyses: a methodological commentary

&
Pages 603-611 | Published online: 09 Jan 2014

References

  • Mulrow CD. The medical review article: state of the science. Ann. Intern. Med.106(3), 485–488 (1987).
  • McAlister FA, Clark HD, van Walraven C et al. The medical review article revisited: has the science improved? Ann. Intern. Med.131(12), 947–951 (1999).
  • Antman EM, Lau J, Kupelnick B, Mosteller F, Chalmers TC. A comparison of results of meta-analyses of randomized control trials and recommendations of clinical experts. Treatments for myocardial infarction. JAMA268(2), 240–248 (1992).
  • Cook DJ, Mulrow CD, Haynes RB. Systematic reviews: synthesis of best evidence for clinical decisions. Ann. Intern. Med.126(5), 376–380 (1997).
  • Mulrow CD. Rationale for systematic reviews. Br. Med. J.309(6954), 597–599 (1994).
  • Montori VM, Helgemoe PK, Guyatt GH et al. Telecare for patients with type 1 diabetes and inadequate glycemic control: a randomized controlled trial and meta-analysis. Diabetes Care27(5), 1088–1094 (2004).
  • Hanefeld M, Cagatay M, Petrowitsch T, Neuser D, Petzinna D, Rupp M. Acarbose reduces the risk for myocardial infarction in type 2 diabetic patients: meta-analysis of seven long-term studies. Eur. Heart. J.25(1), 10–16 (2004).
  • van de Laar FA, Lucassen PL, Akkermans RP, van de Lisdonk EH, Rutten GE, van Weel C. Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors for patients with type 2 diabetes: results from a cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis. Diabetes Care28(1), 154–163 (2005).
  • Juni P, Witschi A, Bloch R, Egger M. The hazards of scoring the quality of clinical trials for meta-analysis. JAMA282(11), 1054–1060 (1999).
  • Dickersin K, Scherer R, Lefebvre C. Identifying relevant studies for systematic reviews. Br. Med. J.309(6964), 1286–1291 (1994).
  • Lemeshow AR, Blum RE, Berlin JA, Stoto MA, Colditz GA. Searching one or two databases was insufficient for meta-analysis of observational studies. J. Clin. Epidemiol.58(9), 867–873 (2005).
  • Greenhalgh T, Peacock R. Effectiveness and efficiency of search methods in systematic reviews of complex evidence: audit of primary sources. Br. Med. J.331(7524), 1064–1065 (2005).
  • McAuley L, Pham B, Tugwell P, Moher D. Does the inclusion of grey literature influence estimates of intervention effectiveness reported in meta-analyses? Lancet356(9237), 1228–1231 (2000).
  • Frank E. Authors’ criteria for selecting journals. JAMA272(2), 163–164 (1994).
  • Montori VM, Smieja M, Guyatt GH. Publication bias: a brief review for clinicians. Mayo Clin. Proc.75(12), 1284–1288 (2000).
  • Egger M, Zellweger T, Antes G. Randomised trials in German-language journals. Lancet347(9007), 1047–1048 (1996).
  • Egger M, Zellweger-Zahner T, Schneider M, Junker C, Lengeler C, Antes G. Language bias in randomised controlled trials published in English and German. Lancet350(9074), 326–329 (1997).
  • Egger M, Smith GD. Bias in location and selection of studies. Br. Med. J.316(7124), 61–66 (1998).
  • Sood A, Sood R, Bauer BA, Ebbert JO. Cochrane systematic reviews in acupuncture: methodological diversity in database searching. J. Altern. Complement. Med.11(4), 719–722 (2005).
  • Villar J. Desenlaces clinicos de sujetos con infeccion cronica por Trypanosoma cruzi tratados o no con agentes tripanocidas. Un metaanalisis de estudios observacionales. Universidad Autonoma de Bucaramanga J. Med.5, 166–173 (2002).
  • Villar JC, Marin-Neto JA, Ebrahim S, Yusuf S. Trypanocidal drugs for chronic asymptomatic Trypanosoma cruzi infection. Cochrane Database Syst. Rev.(1), CD003463 (2002).
  • Easterbrook PJ, Berlin JA, Gopalan R, Matthews DR. Publication bias in clinical research. Lancet337(8746), 867–872 (1991).
  • Misakian AL, Bero LA. Publication bias and research on passive smoking: comparison of published and unpublished studies. JAMA280(3), 250–253 (1998).
  • Stern JM, Simes RJ. Publication bias: evidence of delayed publication in a cohort study of clinical research projects. Br. Med. J.315(7109), 640–645 (1997).
  • Krzyzanowska MK, Pintilie M, Tannock IF. Factors associated with failure to publish large randomized trials presented at an oncology meeting. JAMA290(4), 495–450 (2003).
  • Dickersin K, Min YI. NIH clinical trials and publication bias. Online J. Curr. Clin. Trials Doc No 50 (1993).
  • Timmer A, Hilsden RJ, Cole J, Hailey D, Sutherland LR. Publication bias in gastroenterological research – a retrospective cohort study based on abstracts submitted to a scientific meeting. BMC Med. Res. Methodol.2, 7 (2002).
  • Callaham ML, Wears RL, Weber EJ, Barton C, Young G. Positive-outcome bias and other limitations in the outcome of research abstracts submitted to a scientific meeting. JAMA280(3), 254–257 (1998).
  • Cook DJ, Guyatt GH, Ryan G et al. Should unpublished data be included in meta-analyses? Current convictions and controversies. JAMA269(21), 2749–2753 (1993).
  • Dickersin K, Min YI, Meinert CL. Factors influencing publication of research results. Follow-up of applications submitted to two institutional review boards. JAMA267(3), 374–378 (1992).
  • Shah RV, Albert TJ, Bruegel-Sanchez V, Vaccaro AR, Hilibrand AS, Grauer JN. Industry support and correlation to study outcome for papers published in Spine. Spine30(9), 1099–1104 (2005).
  • Bhandari M, Busse JW, Jackowski D et al. Association between industry funding and statistically significant pro-industry findings in medical and surgical randomized trials. CMAJ170(4), 477–480 (2004).
  • Gibson L. GlaxoSmithKline to publish clinical trials after US lawsuit. Br. Med. J.328(7455), 1513 (2004).
  • Whittington CJ, Kendall T, Fonagy P, Cottrell D, Cotgrove A, Boddington E. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in childhood depression: systematic review of published versus unpublished data. Lancet363(9418), 1341–1345 (2004).
  • von Elm E, Poglia G, Walder B, Tramer MR. Different patterns of duplicate publication: an analysis of articles used in systematic reviews. JAMA291(8), 974–980 (2004).
  • Mojon-Azzi SM, Jiang X, Wagner U, Mojon DS. Redundant publications in scientific ophthalmologic journals: the tip of the iceberg? Ophthalmology111(5), 863–866 (2004).
  • Wager E. The need for trial identifiers. Curr. Med. Res. Opin.20(2), 203–206 (2004).
  • Eysenbach G. Report of a case of cyberplagiarism – and reflections on detecting and preventing academic misconduct using the internet. J. Med. Internet. Res.2(1), E4 (2000).
  • Chan AW, Hrobjartsson A, Haahr MT, Gotzsche PC, Altman DG. Empirical evidence for selective reporting of outcomes in randomized trials: comparison of protocols to published articles. JAMA291(20), 2457–2465 (2004).
  • Chan AW, Altman DG. Identifying outcome reporting bias in randomised trials on PubMed: review of publications and survey of authors. Br. Med. J.330(7494), 753 (2005).
  • Williamson PR, Gamble C. Identification and impact of outcome selection bias in meta-analysis. Stat. Med.24(10), 1547–1561 (2005).
  • Williamson PR, Gamble C, Altman DG, Hutton JL. Outcome selection bias in meta-analysis. Stat. Methods Med. Res.14(5), 515–524 (2005).
  • Irwig L, Macaskill P, Berry G, Glasziou P. Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test. Graphical test is itself biased. Br. Med. J.316(7129), 470 (1998).
  • Seagroatt V, Stratton I. Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test. Test had 10% false positive rate. Br. Med. J.316(7129), 470 (1998).
  • Stuck AE, Rubenstein LZ, Wieland D. Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test. Asymmetry detected in funnel plot was probably due to true heterogeneity. Br. Med. J.316(7129), 46970–46971 (1998).
  • Lau J, Ioannidis JP, Terrin N, Schmid CH, Olkin I. The case of the misleading funnel plot. Br. Med. J.333(7568), 597–600 (2006).
  • Egger M, Davey Smith G, Schneider M, Minder C. Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test. Br. Med. J.315(7109), 629–634 (1997).
  • Terrin N, Schmid CH, Lau J. In an empirical evaluation of the funnel plot, researchers could not visually identify publication bias. J. Clin. Epidemiol.58(9), 894–901 (2005).
  • Sterne JAC, Egger M, Smith GD. Systematic reviews in health care, investigating and dealing with publication and other biases in meta-analysis. Br. Med. J.323, 101–105 (2001).
  • Sutton AJ, Duval SJ, Tweedie RL, Abrams KR, Jones DR. Empirical assessment of effect of publication bias on meta-analyses. Br. Med. J.320(7249), 1574–1577 (2000).
  • Copas J, Shi JQ. Meta-analysis, funnel plots and sensitivity analysis. Biostatistics1(3), 247–362 (2000).
  • Langhorne P. Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test. Prospectively identified trials could be used for comparison with meta-analyses. Br. Med. J.316(7129), 471 (1998).
  • De Angelis C, Drazen JM, Frizelle FA et al. Clinical trial registration, a statement from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Lancet364(9438), 911–912 (2004).
  • Gulmezoglu AM, Pang T, Horton R, Dickersin K. WHO facilitates international collaboration in setting standards for clinical trial registration. Lancet365(9474), 1829–1831 (2005).
  • Chan AW, Upshur R, Singh JA, Ghersi D, Chapuis F, Altman DG. Waiving confidentiality for the greater good. Br. Med. J. (2006) 332(7549), 1086–1089 (2004).
  • Krleza-Jeric K, Chan AW, Dickersin K, Sim I, Grimshaw J, Gluud C. Principles for international registration of protocol information and results from human trials of health related interventions: Ottawa statement (part 1). Br. Med. J.330(7497), 956–958 (2005).
  • Dormandy JA, Charbonnel B, Eckland DJ et al. Secondary prevention of macrovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes in the PROactive Study (PROspective pioglitAzone Clinical Trial In macroVascular Events): a randomised controlled trial. Lancet366(9493), 1279–1289 (2005).
  • Isley WL. Pioglitazone did not reduce a composite endpoint of macrovascular complications and increased risk for heart failure in type 2 diabetes with macrovascular disease. ACP J. Club.144(2), 34 (2006).

Websites

  • ClinicalTrials.gov provides regularly updated information about federally and privately supported clinical research in human volunteers www.clinicaltrials.gov

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.