381,978 papers found

INTRODUCTION: Obesity and overweight are an emerging problem in Africa. Obese children are at increased risk of developing hypertension, high cholesterol, orthopaedic problems and type 2 diabetes as well as increased risk of adult obesity. Prevention of childhood overweight and obesity therefore needs high priority. Th…

BACKGROUND: Although the results of a recent meta-analysis using the traditional random effects model yielded a statistically significant standardized mean difference (SMD) reduction in cancer-related fatigue (CRF) as a result of aerobic exercise, a recently developed inverse heterogeneity (IVhet) model has been shown…

AIM: To identify, critically appraise and synthesize the best current evidence on the use of vaginal cones or balls to improve pelvic floor muscle performance and urinary continence in women post partum. BACKGROUND: The vaginal use of cones or balls is a pelvic floor muscle training method that aims to enhance muscle…

BACKGROUND: Kidney disease remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Canada and worldwide. New medical treatments are needed to reduce the progression of kidney disease to improve patient outcomes. C-peptide is normally released by pancreatic beta-cells along with insulin in healthy individuals, and has been…

Recent advances in sequencing technologies have made it possible to explore the influence of rare variants on complex diseases and traits. Meta-analysis is essential to this exploration because large sample sizes are required to detect rare variants. Several methods are available to conduct meta-analysis for rare varia…

BACKGROUND: The non-availability of clinical trial results contributes to publication bias, diminishing the validity of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Although clinical trial registries have been established to reduce non-publication, the results from over half of all trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov rema…

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have discovered thousands of variants that are associated with human health and disease. Whilst early GWASs have primarily focused on genetically homogeneous populations of European, East Asian and South Asian ancestries, the next-generation genome-wide surveys are starting to po…

BACKGROUND: Resection of lung metastases (LM) from colorectal cancer (CRC) is increasingly performed with a curative intent. It is currently not possible to identify those CRC patients who may benefit the most from this surgical strategy. The aim of this study was to perform a systematic review of risk factors for surv…

BACKGROUND: Network meta-analysis (NMA), a generalization of conventional MA, allows for assessing the relative effectiveness of multiple interventions. Reporting bias is a major threat to the validity of MA and NMA. Numerous methods are available to assess the robustness of MA results to reporting bias. We aimed to ex…

Synthesizing information on test performance metrics such as sensitivity, specificity, predictive values and likelihood ratios is often an important part of a systematic review of a medical test. Because many metrics of test performance are of interest, the meta-analysis of medical tests is more complex than the meta-a…

Prophylactic inferior vena cava filters (pIVCFs) for the prevention of pulmonary embolism (PE) are controversial. Current practice guidelines (EAST and ACCP) are based on the critical appraisal of observational studies. As a result, their recommendations are conflicting and may account for practice pattern variation. T…

Several investigations have reported associations between serotonin 1A (5-HT1A) receptor and major psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (BP), making the 5-HT1A receptor gene (HTR1A) a good candidate gene for the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and BP. To evaluate the association between HT…

Statistical interactions between genes and environmental exposures with respect to disease outcomes may help to identify biologic mechanisms and pathways and inform behavioral interventions. The number of persons required for a single study to have sufficient statistical power to detect such interactions may be conside…

BACKGROUND: Green tea catechins (GTCs) with or without caffeine have been studied in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for their effect on anthropometric measures and have yielded conflicting results. OBJECTIVE: The objective was to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of RCTs of GTCs on anthropometric vari…

OBJECTIVE: To review and analyze the prevailing information and quality of published systematic reviews and Meta-analysis of pneumonia in China. METHODS: After a CNKI, VIP, Wanfang and CMB database retrieval of systematic reviews and Meta-analysis of pneumonia published in Chinese journals, two reviewers, blinded to a…

For clinical trials with binary endpoints there are a variety of effect measures, for example risk difference, risk ratio and odds ratio (OR). The choice of metric is not always straightforward and should reflect the clinical question. Additional issues arise if the event of interest is rare. In systematic reviews, tri…

The pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin(IL)-1beta is a main component in inflammatory pathways and is overexpressed in the brain of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. Several studies report associations between IL-1beta polymorphisms and AD, but findings from different studies are controversial. Our aim was to verify…

BACKGROUND: Although the prognostic importance of troponin in patients with anacute coronary syndrome is clear, the significance of troponin elevation after elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is a subject of debate. However, most studies up to now had a small sample size and insufficient events during fo…

OBJECTIVE: Because the results of a meta-analysis are used to formulate the highest level recommendation in clinical practice guidelines, clinicians should be mindful of problems inherent in this technique. Rather than reviewing meta-analysis in abstract, general terms, we believe readers can gain a more concrete under…