Cautionary tales in the interpretation of systematic reviews of therapy trials.
This is the second in a series of articles emphasizing the cautions in the interpretation of health-care studies. Systematic reviews are presented as comprehensive, unbiased summaries of evidence and are often referred to by clinicians, guideline developers and health policy-makers. Their strengths and limitations, and how their results can be subject to bias and misinterpretation, are discussed.
Scott
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I
Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, Princess Alexandra Hospital, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. ian_scott@health.qld.gov.au
Greenberg
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P
Poole
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P
Campbell
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D
D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D017712:Peer Review, Research / Q000592:standards; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends*; D012196:Review Literature as Topic; D016896:Treatment Outcome