title: Low Reporting Quality of the Meta-Analyses in Diagnostic Pathology.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  - Little is known regarding the reporting quality of meta-analyses in diagnostic pathology.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  - To compare reporting quality of meta-analyses in diagnostic pathology and medicine and to examine factors associated with reporting quality of diagnostic pathology meta-analyses.
  
  
  METHODS
  - Meta-analyses were identified in 12 major diagnostic pathology journals without specifying years and 4 major medicine journals in 2006 and 2011 using PubMed. Reporting quality of meta-analyses was evaluated using the 27-item checklist of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement published in 2009. A higher PRISMA score indicates higher reporting quality.
  
  
  RESULTS
  - Forty-one diagnostic pathology meta-analyses and 118 medicine meta-analyses were included. Overall, reporting quality of meta-analyses in diagnostic pathology was lower than that in medicine (median [interquartile range] = 22 [15, 25] versus 27 [23, 28], P < .001). Compared with medicine meta-analyses, diagnostic pathology meta-analyses less likely reported 23 of the 27 items (85.2%) on the PRISMA checklist, but more likely reported the data items. Higher reporting quality of diagnostic pathology meta-analyses was associated with recent publication years (later than 2009 versus 2009 or earlier, P = .002) and non-North American first authors (versus North American, P = .001), but not journal publisher's location (P = .11). Interestingly, reporting quality was not associated with adjusted citation ratio for meta-analyses in either diagnostic pathology or medicine (P = .40 and P = .09, respectively).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  - Meta-analyses in diagnostic pathology had lower reporting quality than those in medicine. Reporting quality of diagnostic pathology meta-analyses is linked to publication year and first author's location, but not to journal publisher's location or article's adjusted citation ratios. More research and education on meta-analysis methodology may improve the reporting quality of diagnostic pathology meta-analyses.
authors.forename: Xulei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kinzler
authors.forename: Jiangfan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Guozhong
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Biostatistics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee (Dr Liu); the Department of Biology, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York (Mr Kinzler); the Department of Pathology, University Medical Center of Princeton, Plainsboro, New Jersey (Mr Kinzler and Dr Zhang); the Office of Patient-Physician Relationship, Jishuitan Hospital, Beijing, China (Dr Yuan); the Department of Institute of Health, Kunming Medical University, Kuming, China (Dr He); the Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California (Dr He); the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Brunswick (Dr Zhang); the Department of Pathology, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey (Dr Zhang); and the Department of Chemical Biology, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey (Dr Zhang).
authors.forename: Lanjing
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D010336:Pathology