ObjectiveTo investigate the application status of survival analysis in studies published in Chinese oncology journals, and assess their reporting quality and summarize the existing problems, so as to promote the application of survival analysis and reporting quality. MethodsStudies that used survival analysis were collected from 1 492 studies published in Chinese Journal of Oncology, Chinese Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chinese Journal of Radiation Oncology and Chinese Journal of Cancer Prevention and Treatment in 2013. The application status of survival analysis of included studies was analysed and their reporting quality was evaluated. ResultsA total of 242 survival analysis studies were included. Among them, the utilization rates of Kaplan-Meier method, life table method, log-rank test, Breslow test and Cox proportional hazards model were 91.74%, 3.72%, 78.51%, 0.41% and 46.28%, respectively. 112 studies did multivariate analysis through Cox proportional hazards model. A total of 396 end points and 10 different types of survival time were reported. Overall survival (OS) was reported in 233 studies (92.15%). Survival terms were defined to 158 end points (39.90%) of 103 studies (42.56%). The follow-up rates were mentioned in 155 studies (64.05%), of which 4 studies were under 80% and the lowest was 75.25%, 55 studies were 100%. The main problems of survival analysis studies published in Chinese journals were as follows:None of the studies which used Cox proportional hazards model reported the proportional hazards assumption. None of the studies used the method of parametric survival analysis. 130 studies (53.72%) did not use the method of multiple factor analysis. 139 studies (57.44%) did not define the survival terms. Only 11 of 100 studies which reported loss to follow-up had stated how to treat it in the analysis. None of the studies reported the methods of calculating sample size. None of the studies reported the censoring proportion. ConclusionThe methods of survival analysis are used in a low rate in studies published in Chinese oncology journals, and the overall reporting quality of survival analyses is poor. So the reporting guideline of survival analysis should be developed and the authors should be encouraged to cooperate with professional statisticians, in order to improve the design, analysis and reporting quality of survival analysis studies.
This paper introduces the development and changes of clinical practice guidelines based on the enlightenment of the Reporting Items for Practice Guidelines in Health Care (RIGHT), and provides policy recommendations.
Primary liver cancer is the sixth most common malignancy and the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) constitutes the majority of primary liver cancer cases. The Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System (LI-RADS) was introduced to standardize the lexicon, acquisition, interpretation, reporting, and data collection of imaging results in patients at increased risk for HCC. LI-RADS allows effective categorization of focal liver lesions, and has been applied in the full clinical spectrum of HCC from diagnosis, biological behavior characterization, prognosis prediction, to treatment response assessment. This review aimed to summarize the recent applications of CT/MRI LI-RADS in the diagnosis, biological behavior characterization and prognosis prediction of HCC, discuss current challenges and shed light on potential future directions.
ObjectiveTo systematically sort out acupuncture therapy research report specification issues and provide a reference for the selection of key problems in the specification of acupuncture therapy network meta-analysis reports. MethodsComputer searches of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, CNKI, WanFang Data, and VIP databases were conducted to collect studies related to reporting norms for acupuncture therapy, with a search time from inception to November 2022. Questions were constructed according to the SPIDER model and inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed. CASP was used to evaluate the methodological quality of the included literature, and a qualitative systematic evaluation thematic synthesis method was used to analyze, summarize, and integrate the questions on reporting norms for acupuncture therapy research evidence to create a pool of question entries. ResultsA total of 66 papers covering four countries were included, including 17 papers from qualitative studies and 49 papers from quantitative studies. The CASP evaluation results showed that the overall quality of the included studies was high, and the quality of the English studies was higher than that of the Chinese studies. The thematic synthesis method resulted in 22 question entries in 7 categories. The 7 categories of questions included title, abstract, preface, methods, results, discussion and other report specification questions. The 22 entries included "Is there a need to report specific types of acupuncture therapy", "Is there a need to report based on the type of original study and its number", etc. ConclusionThere are many problems with reporting norms in existing acupuncture studies, so it is necessary to collate and summarize the key issues of reporting norms for acupuncture network meta-analysis to provide a scientific and theoretical basis for the development of reporting guidelines for acupuncture network meta-analysis.
Reporting standard system of clinical research of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is composed of ten reporting standards in the areas of the design and preparation of TCM clinical researches, researches of different types, randomized controlled trials of various interventions, systematic reviews of the trials and the translation of research evidence, which were developed by different research groups. This article systematically analyzed the current reporting standards of clinical research of TCM. Achievements and problems were found in the review so as to provide insights for the ongoing reporting standards and to assist the construction of the reporting standard system so as to improve the reporting quality of clinical researches of TCM.
ObjectiveTo assess the endorsement of the ARRIVE guideline and the Gold Standard Publication Checklist (GSPC) by Chinese journals in animal experiments field and its incorporation into their editorial processes. MethodsChinese journals indexed by SCI, MEDLINE, CSCD or CSTPCD were included. The latest'instruction for authors' (IFA) of each included journals was downloaded and any text mentioning the ARRIVE guideline and GSPC was extracted. Subsequently, a self-designed questionnaire was used to investigate the editor of each included journals. The investigation contents mainly included the basic information of the respondents, the awareness situation on the ARRIVE guideline, GSPC and their incorporation into editorial and peer review processes. Results240 journals in animal experiments field from China were examined. A total of 240 questionnaires were issued, of which, 198 questionnaires were effective (response rate 82.5%). The results showed that all IFAs didn't mention the ARRIVE guideline or GSPC and the awareness rate on the ARRIVE guideline and GSPC in editors of Chinese journals was only 13.1%. Only 10.1% of the editors reported that they required authors to comply with the ARRIVE guideline and GSPC. And editors reported that they incorporated the two guidelines into their peer review (7.1%) and editorial processes (8.1%). ConclusionAt present, all Chinese journals'IFAs didn't mention the ARRIVE guideline or GSPC. The majority of editors surveyed are not familiar with the content of the ARRIVE guideline and GSPC. And it needs to take purposeful measures to promote and popularize them in order to improve the quality of animal experiment reports.
The standards for reporting of diagnostic accuracy for studies in journal or conference abstracts (STARD for Abstracts) was developed for guiding the reporting of abstracts of diagnostic accuracy studies, which was published in BMJ in August 2017. The study mainly introduced and interpreted the items of STARD for Abstracts, in order to help domestic researchers to perform and report the abstracts of diagnostic accuracy studies by STARD for Abstracts.
An intervention with clinical application must be effective and safe, therefore, when evaluating interventions, the benefit-harm ratio should be considered, and only those interventions with more benefits than harms have application value. To evaluate the benefits and harms of an intervention evidence of both benefits and harms should be reported in clinical trials. To promote better reporting of harms in randomized controlled trials, the CONSORT group had added an entry on harms in the 2001 version of the CONSORT statement, and then in 2004, the CONSORT group developed the CONSORT Harms extension; however, it has not been consistently applied and needs to be updated, the reporting of harms is still inadequate. The CONSORT group has updated《Better reporting of harms in randomized trial: an extension of the CCONSORT statement.》, published《CONSORT Harms 2022 statement, explanation, and elaboration: updated guideline for the reporting of harms in randomized trials》. This article presents and explains the Harms 2022, with the aim of helping researchers better understand and use the statement, with a view to improving the reporting quality of harms in clinical trials.
The standards for reporting of diagnostic accuracy (STARD) was developed for guiding the reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies. Its newest version was published in 2015. The study mainly introduced the checklist, terminology, and diagram of the STARD 2015. It is hoped that domestic researchers could use the STARD 2015 to guide the implementation and reporting of their diagnostic accuracy studies, so as to improve the reporting quality of diagnostic accuracy studies.
ObjectiveTo evaluate the reporting quality of clinical randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in five Chinese psychiatric journals from 2016 to 2020 and to compare the reporting quality with that from 2004 to 2008. MethodsRCTs in five Chinese psychiatric journals were collected through a computerized search of the CNKI, WanFang Data, and CBM databases and manual searches of paper journals, all with a search timeframe from 2016 to 2020. The CONSORT 2010 statement and two extensions (CONSORT extension for abstracts and CONSORT harms extension) were used to evaluate the RCTs. The criteria for reporting quality were the evaluation score, reporting proportion, and compliance proportion. The reporting quality of RCTs in the past 5 years was compared by year group. In addition, the RCT reporting quality from 2004 to 2008 was compared with that from 2016 to 2020. ResultsIn total, 226 RCTs were included. There was no statistically significant difference in the total evaluation score or abstract score from 2016 to 2020 (F=0.54, P=0.71; H=1.49, P=0.83). However, there were statistically significant differences in the harm scores from 2016 to 2020 (H=10.78, P=0.03). Further analysis of the items revealed statistically significant differences in the reporting proportion of items 16 and 19 (Fisher’s=8.61, P=0.04; χ2=11.63, P=0.02) and no significant differences in the other items (P>0.05). The reporting proportion of defined primary and secondary outcome indicators, allocation concealment, randomization implementation, outcomes and estimation, generalization, trial registration, and flow chart was <10% in each year. There was a statistically significant difference in the compliance proportion of RCT reporting quality from 2016 to 2020 versus 2004 to 2008 (39.54%±8.92% vs. 34.76%±9.16%, t=6.60, P<0.001). ConclusionThe reporting quality of RCTs in five Chinese psychiatric journals from 2016 to 2020 is better than that from 2004 to 2008. However, the reporting quality of RCTs within the latter 5 years still have reporting deficiencies in important items, and many aspects still are needed to be improved and enhanced.