Methodological and reporting quality of systematic reviews on aesthetics and reconstructive breast surgery: A meta-research

Ref ID 1296
First Author P. H. de Mattos Cavalcante
Journal JOURNAL OF EVALUATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE
Year Of Publishing 2025
URL https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jep.14141
Keywords • Surgery
• Low methodological quality
• Protocols
• Low reporting quality
• Cosmetic procedures
Problem(s) • No registered or published protocol
• Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
• Low reporting (PRISMA) quality
• Lack of prespecification in eligibility criteria
• Intervention not described / defined
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country Brazil
Checklists • PRISMA 2020
• AMSTAR 2
Aim To evaluate the methodological (AMSTAR-2) and reporting (PRISMA 2020) quality of systematic reviews indexed across the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (CDSR), Epistemonikos and Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE, via PubMed) up to on 19 December 2023, of randomized controlled trials on aesthetics and reconstructive breast surgery.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings From 15 systematic reviews indexed across the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (CDSR), Epistemonikos and Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE, via PubMed) up to on 19 December 2023, of randomized controlled trials on aesthetics and reconstructive breast surgery. Of the 15 included reviews, eight (60%) referred to the use of a methodological guide and five (33.3%) invertedly referred to PRISMA as the methodological guide. None of the reviews referred to a reporting guideline. The median adherence to PRISMA‐2020 items was 42.9% (Q1 –38.1%/Q3 – 95.2%) and to AMSTAR‐2 items was 33.3% (Q1 – 23.3%/Q3 – 93.3%) which reflects overall low reporting and methodological quality of the included reviews The overall confidence in the results using AMSTAR‐2 framework was critically low in 73.3% of the included reviews. Only one review had a fully reported research question, and none explained their study design criteria for inclusion; only 40% reported having a protocol. Although a small number of reviews were included, a high correlation between the methodological and reporting quality was observed (Spearmean rho = 0.96, 95% bias‐corrected confidence interval = 0.84 to 0.99).
Number of systematic reviews included 15
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 934
Treatment impacted Not Applicable
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description