Caution should be exercised when assessing ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 in systematic reviews

Ref ID	862
First Author	J. Deng
Journal	REVIEWS IN MEDICAL VIROLOGY
Year Of Publishing	2022
URL	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rmv.2317
Keywords	Protocols Pharmacological Statistical Expertise COVID Risk of bias Pre-specification Subgroup Retraction Low reporting quality Non-Cochrane reviews Certainty
Problem(s)	Unplanned or unjustified subgroup or sensitivity analyses Lack of statistical expertise in handling of quantitative data Flawed risk of bias undertaken Low reporting or methodological quality (OTHER GUIDANCE) Perpetuates citation of poor quality primary study data Interpreted without considering certainty or overall quality of the evidence base Undocumented or unjustified deviations to the review protocol
Number of systematic reviews included	1
Summary of Findings	From a letter highlighting several limitations in the methodology and conduct of a systematic review on the efficacy of ivermectin treatment in COVID-19 patients published in 2021. The author of the letter highlighted several areas of concern: lack of clarity about whether the Jadad tool was utilized correctly or provided a valid assessment to measure risk of bias in studies; no GRADE assessment on the confidence of their findings as required by PRISMA; tests were not perfomed for normality using established methods prior to proceeding with the imputation; some outcomes and subgroup analyses were not outlined on the PROSPERO registration; 9 out of 18 of the included studies were pre-print articles and included retracted studies.
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results?	Not Applicable
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study?