Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: With the introduction of Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS), the production of diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) systematic reviews of diagnostics have further progressed in China. The quantity of reviews has been growing from 2001 to 2010. But the developments of use of methods and statistical software have only been assessed in small survey reviews so far.
Objectives: To evaluate the status of methodological developments and statistical software in DTA reviews conducted in China.
Methods: We used the search terms “systematic reviewsáá or “meta-analysisáá and “sensitivityáá or “specificityáá or “accuracyáá or “diagnosticáá in title and keywords to search the Chinese Biomedical Medicine database (CBM) (1979-2010), the Wanfang database (2001-2005), the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) (1994-2010) and the full database of China (VIP) (1989-2010). We excluded duplicate papers, papers not published in Chinese, conference abstracts, simple literature evaluation, and protocols.
Results: There were 153 studies included. The number of DTA systematic reviews has increased over the last 10 years in China (Figure1), but the uptake of new methods and statistical software lags behind. Pooling sensitivity and specificity or using the summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) was the prior method in 75% of studies. The fixed or random effects models were used in reviews for 19% of studies. However, the bivariate random effects model and the hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic (HSROC) model were not used in any of the included reviews. At the same time statistical software developments were limited. Meta-DiSc and Review Manager were used in 50% and 31% of the reviews respectively. STATA was only applied in 7% and SAS in 5% of the reviews. Other statistical software (SPSS, EXCEL, etc.) was used in 31% of the reviews.
Conclusions: Even though the quantity of DTA systematic reviews has increased in the last decade in China, uptake of up to date statistical methods and software is still lagging behind. It is necessary to increase the use of up to date statistical methods and software in diagnostic systematic reviews in China.
Objectives: To evaluate the status of methodological developments and statistical software in DTA reviews conducted in China.
Methods: We used the search terms “systematic reviewsáá or “meta-analysisáá and “sensitivityáá or “specificityáá or “accuracyáá or “diagnosticáá in title and keywords to search the Chinese Biomedical Medicine database (CBM) (1979-2010), the Wanfang database (2001-2005), the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) (1994-2010) and the full database of China (VIP) (1989-2010). We excluded duplicate papers, papers not published in Chinese, conference abstracts, simple literature evaluation, and protocols.
Results: There were 153 studies included. The number of DTA systematic reviews has increased over the last 10 years in China (Figure1), but the uptake of new methods and statistical software lags behind. Pooling sensitivity and specificity or using the summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) was the prior method in 75% of studies. The fixed or random effects models were used in reviews for 19% of studies. However, the bivariate random effects model and the hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic (HSROC) model were not used in any of the included reviews. At the same time statistical software developments were limited. Meta-DiSc and Review Manager were used in 50% and 31% of the reviews respectively. STATA was only applied in 7% and SAS in 5% of the reviews. Other statistical software (SPSS, EXCEL, etc.) was used in 31% of the reviews.
Conclusions: Even though the quantity of DTA systematic reviews has increased in the last decade in China, uptake of up to date statistical methods and software is still lagging behind. It is necessary to increase the use of up to date statistical methods and software in diagnostic systematic reviews in China.
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