| Title |
Wasted research when systematic reviews fail to provide a complete and up-to-date evidence synthesis: the example of lung cancer
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
BMC Medicine, January 2016
|
| DOI | 10.1186/s12916-016-0555-0 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Perrine Créquit, Ludovic Trinquart, Amélie Yavchitz, Philippe Ravaud |
| Abstract |
Multiple treatments are frequently available for a given condition, and clinicians and patients need a comprehensive, up-to-date synthesis of evidence for all competing treatments. We aimed to quantify the waste of research related to the failure of systematic reviews to provide a complete and up-to-date evidence synthesis over time. We performed a series of systematic overviews and networks of randomized trials assessing the gap between evidence covered by systematic reviews and available trials of second-line treatments for advanced non-small cell lung cancer. We searched the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and other resources sequentially by year from 2009 to March 2, 2015. We sequentially compared the amount of evidence missing from systematic reviews to the randomized evidence available for inclusion each year. We constructed cumulative networks of randomized evidence over time and evaluated the proportion of trials, patients, treatments, and treatment comparisons not covered by systematic reviews on December 31 each year from 2009 to 2015. We identified 77 trials (28,636 patients) assessing 47 treatments with 54 comparisons and 29 systematic reviews (13 published after 2013). From 2009 to 2015, the evidence covered by existing systematic reviews was consistently incomplete: 45 % to 70 % of trials; 30 % to 58 % of patients; 40 % to 66 % of treatments; and 38 % to 71 % of comparisons were missing. In the cumulative networks of randomized evidence, 10 % to 17 % of treatment comparisons were partially covered by systematic reviews and 55 % to 85 % were partially or not covered. We illustrate how systematic reviews of a given condition provide a fragmented, out-of-date panorama of the evidence for all treatments. This waste of research might be reduced by the development of live cumulative network meta-analyses. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 61 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 10 | 16% |
| Canada | 5 | 8% |
| United States | 4 | 7% |
| France | 3 | 5% |
| Spain | 2 | 3% |
| South Africa | 2 | 3% |
| Australia | 2 | 3% |
| Mexico | 1 | 2% |
| Netherlands | 1 | 2% |
| Other | 4 | 7% |
| Unknown | 27 | 44% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 37 | 61% |
| Scientists | 14 | 23% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 9 | 15% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 2% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 104 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 2 | 2% |
| Norway | 2 | 2% |
| France | 1 | <1% |
| Netherlands | 1 | <1% |
| Unknown | 98 | 94% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Researcher | 21 | 20% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 16 | 15% |
| Student > Master | 12 | 12% |
| Professor | 10 | 10% |
| Other | 7 | 7% |
| Other | 17 | 16% |
| Unknown | 21 | 20% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine and Dentistry | 37 | 36% |
| Computer Science | 6 | 6% |
| Psychology | 5 | 5% |
| Mathematics | 5 | 5% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 4 | 4% |
| Other | 14 | 13% |
| Unknown | 33 | 32% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 44. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 December 2019.
All research outputs
#859,083
of 23,846,647 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medicine
#597
of 3,624 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#16,250
of 401,082 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medicine
#8
of 50 outputs
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