Reporting of Level 1 Evidence in Peyronie's Disease Publications- A Systematic Review

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction Despite an increasing number of publications on Peyronie's disease (PD), evidence-based clinical decision making remains challenging due to the small number of well-designed clinical trials. The quality of available PD literature has not been assessed to date. Objective We sought to evaluate the quality of the methodology and reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in PD literature Methods Study protocol registration was performed on the Open Science Framework platform. In January 2021, a systematic electronic search of the Medline/PubMed, Embase, Ovid, Scopus, Joanne Briggs Institute and Cochrane databases was performed. Search terms included “Peyronie's disease” and “systematic review OR meta-analysis OR meta analysis”. Eligibility criteria were relevance to Peyronie's disease and specification of “systematic review” or “meta-analysis” in the title or abstract. A database was created to summarize the relevant methodological and reporting criteria for each article. The outcomes included review type, authorship, journal, publication date, “A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews” (AMSTAR-2) score and “Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses” (PRISMA) score. Risk of bias was assessed using the ROBIS tool. Data were tabulated and reported as means with standard deviation, median with interquartile range (IQR) and t-testing as appropriate. Strength of association between variables was calculated using the Pearson correlation coefficient. Statistical analyses were performed on RStudio (version 1.4.1106). Results From 1974 to 2021, 340 articles were identified. After review 23 full length articles were included. Seventeen were systematic reviews, 4 meta-analyses and 2 were combined. Twenty-one (87.5%) articles were published after the year 2009 when the PRISMA guidelines were published. There was median 53.8% (IQR 38.2%) adherence to AMSTAR-2 criteria and 66.7% (IQR 38.9%) adherence to PRISMA criteria. The overall AMSTAR confidence rating was Critically Low in 15/23 studies, indicating more than one critical flaw. Correlation analysis revealed very high positive association between AMSTAR 2 and PRISMA adherence (+0.97). ROBIS revealed “High” concern regarding methods used to collect data and appraise 17/23 studies (73.9%), and “High” concern regarding synthesis and findings in 14/23 studies (60.9%). Conclusions Transparent reporting of methodology and findings in SRs and MAs is crucial to maintaining research integrity and allowing for accurate interpretation of results. Despite an increasing number of publications in PD, many of these studies fail to meet accepted methodological criteria for reporting. More high quality randomized controlled trials in PD are necessary; while systematic reviews and meta-analyses should focus on these high-quality studies with uniform use of accepted reporting guidelines. Disclosure No