Methodological issues and recommendations for systematic reviews of prognostic studies: an example from cardiovascular disease

Ref ID 738
First Author J.Dretzke
Journal SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS
Year Of Publishing 2014
URL https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25466903/
Keywords • Risk of bias
• Heterogeneity
• Cardiology
• Prognostic
Problem(s) • Risk of bias not incorporated into conclusions of review
• No quality assessment undertaken or reported
• Inadequate analysis of heterogeneity
• Perpetuates citation of poor quality primary study data
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country United Kingdom
Aim To assess the methodological conduct of systematic reviews for ‘aspirin resistance’ (a potential prognostic factor) for future vascular events in patients on aspirin therapy for secondary prevention.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings Across the 8 included systematic reviews addressing the same clinical question of aspirin resistance as a prognostic factor for future vascular events, there were considerable differences in the numbers of studies identified and overlap between included studies, which could only partially be explained by different study eligibility criteria. Incomplete reporting and differences in terminology within primary studies hampered study identification and selection process across reviews. Quality assessment was highly variable and only one systematic review considered a checklist for studies of prognostic questions. Only two of the eight systematic reviews used quality assessment to inform the discussion around their findings.
Number of systematic reviews included 8
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 17
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description