391,881 papers found

INTRODUCTION: The objectives of this review were to assess the methodological quality of published meta-analyses related to endodontics using the assessment of multiple systematic reviews (AMSTAR) tool and to provide a follow-up to previously published reviews. METHODS: Three electronic databases were searched for eli…

Surrogate endpoints are often used in clinical trials instead of well-established hard endpoints for practical convenience. The meta-analytic approach relies on two measures of surrogacy: one at the individual level and one at the trial level. In the survival data setting, a two-step model based on copulas is commonly…

PURPOSE: We compared the results of prospective and retrospective cohort studies in the field of digestive surgery to clarify whether the results of prospective cohort studies were more similar to those of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). METHODS: We conducted a secondary analysis of the results to compare the res…

The central purpose of this study is to document how a sharper focus upon statistical power may reduce the impact of selective reporting bias in meta-analyses. We introduce the weighted average of the adequately powered (WAAP) as an alternative to the conventional random-effects (RE) estimator. When the results of some…

Controversies from basic science, discrepancies from clinical trials, and divergent results from meta-analyses have recently arisen in the field of cell therapies for cardiovascular repair and regeneration. Noticeably, there are almost as many systematic reviews and meta-analyses published as there are well-conducted c…

Animal experiments are critical for the development of new human therapeutics because they provide mechanistic information, as well as important information on efficacy and safety. Some evidence suggests that authors of animal research in dentistry do not observe important methodological issues when planning animal exp…

The use of electronic health records has skyrocketed following the 2009 HITECH Act, which provides financial incentives to health care providers for the "meaningful use" of electronic medical record systems. An important component of the "Meaningful Use" legislation is the integration of Clinical Decision Support Syste…

OBJECTIVES: A sizeable body of work has consistently documented that a number of euthymic mixed-age bipolar disorder subjects exhibit prominent impairments in a variety of cognitive domains. By contrast, knowledge about neuropsychological functioning in elderly patients is scant, despite being necessary for the adequat…

As a method for developing and testing hypotheses, meta-analytic structural equation modeling, or MASEM, has drawn the interest of scholars. However, challenges remain in how we can model and explain meaningful heterogeneity in structural equation modeling (SEM) parameters. To address this issue, two novel methods have…

The purpose of the present study was to identify the 100 top cited systematic reviews and meta-analyses on dental journals so as to gain insight into the influential publications in dentistry.The Web of Science was used to comprehensively identify the 100 most cited papers without year and language restriction. Specifi…

Single-case designs are a class of repeated measures experiments used to evaluate the effects of interventions for small or specialized populations, such as individuals with low-incidence disabilities. There has been growing interest in systematic reviews and syntheses of evidence from single-case designs, but there re…

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The exponential growth of the global scientific output requires review articles that summarize such escalating knowledge. The rate of growth in the number of published meta-analyses in the last decade is impressive, with meta-analyses being the most cited form of scientific article. The validi…

A systematic review (SR) provides the best and most objective analysis of the existing evidence in a particular field. SRs and derived conclusions are essential for evidence-based strategies in medicine and evidence-based guidelines in clinical practice. The popularity of SRs has also increased markedly in the field of…

Despite advances in the diagnosis and treatment of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) and prevention efforts to reduce the spread of C. difficile, CDI remains a significant challenge to healthcare systems worldwide. Further advances in prevention of CDI may need to focus on those who continue to be exposed to the or…

Despite clearly established guidelines, recent audits have found the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses (SRMAs) within neurosurgery to be relatively lackluster in methodological rigor and compliance. Protocols of SRMAs allow for planning and documentation of review methods, guard against arbi…

Meta-analytical techniques are crucial to synthetize available evidence and advance research and practice. However, meta-analyses are typically concerned with the strength of an effect and less so with the measurement quality of the scales underlying that effect. This is a problem because measurement quality is crucial…

The classical meta-analytical random effects model (REM) has some weaknesses when applied to the standardized mean difference, g. Essentially, the variance of the studies involved is taken as the conditional variance, given a δ value, instead of the unconditional variance. As a consequence, the estimators of the…

Researchers may have at their disposal the raw data of the studies they wish to meta-analyze. The goal of this study is to identify, illustrate, and compare a range of possible analysis options for researchers to whom raw data are available, wanting to fit a structural equation model (SEM) to these data. This study ill…

There has been increasing concern about compromised integrity in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) because it undermines the authority of this top-level evidence-generating method and puts patients at risk. Compromised RCTs also jeopardize the validity of systematic reviews and meta-analyses when they are included. T…

Researchers frequently rely on meta-analyses of prior research studies to efficiently evaluate a broad spectrum of results on a particular topic. In the realm of single-subject experimental designs (SSEDs), meta-analyses have a particular cachet: retaining the rigor of single-subject designs with the added robustness o…