Trends in systematic reviews of kidney transplantation: A 10-year analysis of the evidence base

Ref ID 907
First Author S. Salih
Journal TRANSPLANTATION REVIEWS
Year Of Publishing 2023
URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955470X23000137?via%3Dihub
Keywords • Non-Cochrane reviews
• Protocols
• Surgery
• Publication bias
• Nephrology
• Low methodological quality
• Risk of bias
• Transparency
Problem(s) • No registered or published protocol
• Low methodological (AMSTAR) quality
• Reasons for excluding potentially eligible studies not provided
• Poor consideration of publication bias
• Limited quality assessment or no risk of bias
• Individual study characteristics not reported sufficiently
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country United Kingdom
Checklists • AMSTAR 2
Aim To analyse the trends, strength and quality of Systematic Reviews in kidney transplantation over a 10-year period.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings From 454 included systematic reviews of kidney transplantation identified from the Transplant Library from 01 January 2008 until 31 December 2018. Of the included 454 systematic reviews 70% of systematic reviews were identified as critically low methodological quality (AMSTAR 2), which increased in number over time. The systematic reviews did not score well for protocol registration (16.96%), documentation of excluded studies (24.45%) and reporting of publication bias (32.16%). Review authors did not discuss the risk of bias or carry out appropriate statistical tests to assess the risk of publication bias in 73.90% and 67.80% of systematic reviews, respectively. There was also poor reporting of the included study designs in 84.40% of systematic reviews.
Number of systematic reviews included 454
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 489
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description