ObjectiveTo investigate the application status of survival analysis in studies published in Chinese oncology journals, and assess their reporting quality and summarize the existing problems, so as to promote the application of survival analysis and reporting quality. MethodsStudies that used survival analysis were collected from 1 492 studies published in Chinese Journal of Oncology, Chinese Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chinese Journal of Radiation Oncology and Chinese Journal of Cancer Prevention and Treatment in 2013. The application status of survival analysis of included studies was analysed and their reporting quality was evaluated. ResultsA total of 242 survival analysis studies were included. Among them, the utilization rates of Kaplan-Meier method, life table method, log-rank test, Breslow test and Cox proportional hazards model were 91.74%, 3.72%, 78.51%, 0.41% and 46.28%, respectively. 112 studies did multivariate analysis through Cox proportional hazards model. A total of 396 end points and 10 different types of survival time were reported. Overall survival (OS) was reported in 233 studies (92.15%). Survival terms were defined to 158 end points (39.90%) of 103 studies (42.56%). The follow-up rates were mentioned in 155 studies (64.05%), of which 4 studies were under 80% and the lowest was 75.25%, 55 studies were 100%. The main problems of survival analysis studies published in Chinese journals were as follows:None of the studies which used Cox proportional hazards model reported the proportional hazards assumption. None of the studies used the method of parametric survival analysis. 130 studies (53.72%) did not use the method of multiple factor analysis. 139 studies (57.44%) did not define the survival terms. Only 11 of 100 studies which reported loss to follow-up had stated how to treat it in the analysis. None of the studies reported the methods of calculating sample size. None of the studies reported the censoring proportion. ConclusionThe methods of survival analysis are used in a low rate in studies published in Chinese oncology journals, and the overall reporting quality of survival analyses is poor. So the reporting guideline of survival analysis should be developed and the authors should be encouraged to cooperate with professional statisticians, in order to improve the design, analysis and reporting quality of survival analysis studies.
Primary liver cancer is the sixth most common malignancy and the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) constitutes the majority of primary liver cancer cases. The Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System (LI-RADS) was introduced to standardize the lexicon, acquisition, interpretation, reporting, and data collection of imaging results in patients at increased risk for HCC. LI-RADS allows effective categorization of focal liver lesions, and has been applied in the full clinical spectrum of HCC from diagnosis, biological behavior characterization, prognosis prediction, to treatment response assessment. This review aimed to summarize the recent applications of CT/MRI LI-RADS in the diagnosis, biological behavior characterization and prognosis prediction of HCC, discuss current challenges and shed light on potential future directions.
Radiomics transforms the medical images into minable high-throughput data, extracts the in-depth information invisible to the naked eye, in order to provide support for clinical diagnosis and treatment decision-making processes through the analysis of these data. Recently, radiomics has garnered widespread attention from researchers, with a continuously increasing number of research publications. However, there is still a lack of transparency in reporting radiomics studies. To guide the reporting of radiomics research, the CheckList for EvaluAtion of Radiomics research (CLEAR) was developed by the CLEAR working group using an expert consensus process. This checklist, which was published in May 2023, comprises 58 items and has been endorsed by the European Society of Radiology (ESR) and the European Society for Medical Imaging Informatics (EuSoMII). With authorization from the CLEAR working group, this article introduces and interprets the content of this checklist, to promote the understanding and application of CLEAR among radiomics researchers in China, and to enhance the transparency of radiomics research reporting.
Adherence to reporting guidelines contributes to report methodology and outcomes of research distinctly and transparently. There are some checklists with specific study types related to surgery on the EQUATOR Network’s website. However, the IDEAL framework focuses on stepwise evaluation of surgical innovation through all stages with some key elements, which those existing guidelines may not mention. This likely results in the inaccuracy in reporting in studies attempting to follow the IDEAL recommendations and suggests a pressing need for IDEAL reporting guidelines. Considering these limitations, the IDEAL developed the IDEAL reporting guidelines between October 2018 and May 2019. The paper aimed to provide interpretation of IDEAL reporting guideline, and promote its understanding and use among Chinese researchers.
This study aimed to provide suggestions for future researchers to select and optimize sham acupuncture reporting guidelines in acupuncture clinical trials. Through qualitative analysis, we compared the basic information and concrete contents between Acupuncture Controls gUideline for Reporting humAn Trials and Experiments (ACURATE) and SHam Acupuncture REporting guidelines in clinical trials (SHARE) developed by researchers from China and Korea. In addition, the similarities and differences of the two guidelines were illustrated through a specific case. We found that the two guidelines had their own characteristics and emphasis in content, but both emphasized the reports of detailed information and background factors of sham acupuncture compared with the previous STRICTA and TIDieR-Placebo checklist. In terms of item division, we found that the ACURATE split the same topic into several items to emphasize the importance of each item content. SHARE emphasized the comprehensive reports of sham acupuncture by combining several items into a single item. In terms of item content, ACURATE also focused on combination therapy, the information regarding sham acupuncture provided to participants, and any differences in treatment settings between versus/sham acupuncture, which had some referential meaning for setting sham acupuncture control. SHARE also focused on sham acupuncture detailed information, practitioner, and modifications, etc. Case analysis showed that there were some "not reported" or "partially reported" items in both guidelines. Therefore, it is suggested that researchers can use the above two guidelines to complement and learn from each other to report sham acupuncture. In addition, it is necessary for researchers to verify the operability and practicability of the above two guidelines, and provide suggestions for optimizing and updating them in the future.
With the encouragement of national policy on drug and medical device innovation, multi-center clinical trials and multi-regional clinical trials are facing an unprecedented opportunity in China. Trials with a multi-center design are far more common at present than before. However, it should be recognized there still exists shortcomings in current multi-center trials. In this paper, we summarize the problems and challenges and provide corresponding resolutions with the aim to reduce heterogeneity between study centers and avoid excessive center effects in treatment. It is urgent to develop design, implementation and reporting guidelines to improve the overall quality of multi-center clinical trials.
ObjectivesUsing the ARRIVE guidelines (Animal Research Reporting: In Vivo Experiments Guidelines) to carry out a retrospective study of the reporting quality of animal studies published in Chinese journals.MethodsWe searched databases including CNKI, WanFang Data, VIP and CBM to July, 2018. Four reviewers independently screened literatures and extracted data. The ARRIVE guidelines were used to assess reporting quality and the comparative analysis based on different published time.ResultsA total of 4 342 studies were included. About the cited frequency, 73.03% studies were ≤5, and merely 29.04% studies were published in journals of CSCD. The assessment results showed that the number of reported items with "low risk" in the ARRIVE guidelines, which have 20 items, that meaning 39 sub items, more than half of sub items (51.28%, 20/39) rated as "low risk" had a compliance rate of less than 50%. Among them, 65.00% (13/20) of sub items had a lower rate of compliance with "low risk" than 10%.ConclusionThe reporting quality of domestic animal studies is generally low. The coincidence rate of domestic animal studies has been improved to some extent in most of items after the ARRIVE guidelines published, however, some items of methodology, results and conclusions had problems with insufficient reporting. Therefore, we suggest that it is necessary to popularize the ARRIVE guidelines, advocate more researchers following the ARRIVE guidelines and promote endorsement of the ARRIVE Guideline by Chinese Journals to improve the design, implementation and reporting of animal experiments, and ultimately enhance the quality of animal studies.
Chinese medicine case report, a special method, records the experience of practitioners and guides students to inherit and develop Chinese medicine. It can transfer a large amount of medical and humanistic information and contribute to the development of Chinese medicine. It is a literary style that has been widely accepted and helps to document and disseminate the culture of Chinese medicine. With the advent of big data and information, more Chinese medicine case reports have been published. However, many have insufficient quality to properly guide and apply in the clinical practice, which might be caused by little guidance of Chinese medicine case report standards published. This paper summarized the case report standards, synthesized and appraised the feasibility and problems specific for improving the quality of Chinese medicine case reports, and proposed suggestions and guidance for developing the standardization of Chinese medicine medical case reports.
According to the evidence pyramid model, systematic review (SR)/meta-analysis (MA) is one of the essential sources with a high level of clinical evidence. A high-quality SR/MA can effectively guide clinical decision-making and practice. The preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses extension for Chinese herbal medicines (PRISMA-CHM) were officially published in 2020. In this study, based on research cases, the features of PRISMA-CHM were interpreted in detail, so as to help domestic users accurately grasp the details of the reports, in order to improve the quality of the reports of SR/MA of traditional Chinese medicine.
Consensus reporting items for studies in primary care (CRISP) is a newly developed measurement tool developed abroad to standardize primary health care research, so as to improve the quality of reporting and enhance the applicability, comprehensiveness, transparency and operability of reporting. The report contains 24 Entries that follow the Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion (IMRaD) format, and is primarily concerned with describing the research team, the patients, the study subjects, the health status, the clinical experience, the health care team, the interventions, the study interventions, and the findings in the PHC study / implementation of results, etc. This article introduces and interprets the reporting guidelines to help researchers better understand and apply this statement to improve the quality of reporting in primary health care research