Red for danger in systematic reviews?

Moore, Andrew

doi:10.1136/ejhpharm-2021-003080

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 14 publications

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“…The scandal of poor medical research has been a wellknown fact for at least a quarter of a century (Altman, 1994), but little seems to be changing (Moore, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Systematic reviews do not (yet) represent the ‘gold standard’ of evidence: A position paper

Moore¹,

Fisher

Eccleston

2022

European Journal of Pain

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The low quality of included trials, insufficient rigour in review methodology, ignorance of key pain issues, small size, and over-optimistic judgements about the direction and magnitude of treatment effects all devalue systematic reviews, supposedly the 'gold standard' of evidence. Available evidence indicates that almost all systematic reviews in the published literature contain fatal flaws likely to make their conclusions incorrect and misleading. Only 3 in every 100 systematic reviews are deemed to have adequate methods and be clinically useful. Examples of research waste and questionable ethical standards abound: most trials have little hope of providing useful results, and systematic review of hopeless trials inspires no confidence. We argue that results of most systematic reviews should be dismissed. Forensically critical systematic reviews are essential tools to improve the quality of trials and should be encouraged and protected.

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“…The scandal of poor medical research has been a wellknown fact for at least a quarter of a century (Altman, 1994), but little seems to be changing (Moore, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%