Two Years Later: Journals Are Not Yet Enforcing the ARRIVE Guidelines on Reporting Standards for Pre-Clinical Animal Studies

Baker, David; Lidster, Katie; Sottomayor, Ana; Amor, Sandra

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001756

Cited by 276 publications

(302 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Even for animal studies, for which reporting in mainstream journals is remarkably poor, we found that performance of predatory journals was much worse; for instance, just 3% of 201 relevant predatory articles reported blinding. A separate study found that blinding is recorded in 20% of articles in PLoS journals and in 21% of articles in Nature journals 7 .…”

Section: Sloppy Workmentioning

confidence: 97%

Stop this waste of people, animals and money

Moher

Shamseer

Cobey

et al. 2017

Nature

206

170

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Section: Sloppy Workmentioning

confidence: 97%

Stop this waste of people, animals and money

Moher

Shamseer

Cobey

et al. 2017

Nature

206

170

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“…In an animal study, a concern of reporting quality has been raised for both laboratory animals and livestock species. Some useful guidelines (the ARRIVE guidelines for laboratory animals (Kilkenny et al 2010) and the REFLECT statement for livestock species (Sargeant et al 2010)) have been developed to help authors prepare their manuscripts of animal studies, but implementation is still not vigorous (Baker et al 2014). Unlike in human trials that are commonly reported with one trial per an article, reporting multiple trials per article was found as high as 13.7% in RCT and 33% in non-RCT abstracts from chicken research ( Table 2).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reporting quality of randomized and non-randomized controlled trial abstracts from chicken research

Sukon

Kongpechr

Bubpahou

et al. 2016

Preprint

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In publication of a controlled trial article from health science research, the abstract is an important part that readers usually read first and then decide whether to read the whole article; therefore, information provided in the abstract should be adequate. The CONSORT (consolidated standards of reporting trials) for Abstracts checklist has been developed and used as a guideline for authors to prepare their manuscripts. This checklist has also been used as a tool to evaluate published abstracts. The objectives of this study were to evaluate reporting quality of randomized controlled trial (RCT) and non-RCT abstracts from chicken research and to determine factors associated with the reporting quality. We searched PubMed for RCT and non-RCT abstracts involving chicken research published between 2006 and 2015. The included abstracts were evaluated using the modified CONSORT for Abstracts checklist. The primary outcome was a mean overall quality score (OQS), which, for each abstract, was a sum of items reported in the modified CONSORT for Abstracts checklist. In addition, some pre-specified factors were evaluated for their association with the reporting quality using simple and multiple linear regression analyses.A total of 949 abstracts (n=262 for RCT and n=687 for non-RCT abstracts) were included and evaluated. Although OQS was significantly greater in RCT than in non-RCT abstracts (mean ± SD, 6.7 ± 0.9 vs 3.3 ± 1.1; P-value<0.001), both mean scores were still less than half of the full score of 15. Only 2 items-objective and conclusions-were adequately reported (>80%) in both types of the abstracts. Items concerning trial design, participants, interventions, randomization, and number randomized were adequately reported only in the RCT abstracts. In contrast, items concerning the study as randomized in the title, clearly defined primary outcome, blinding, numbers analyzed, estimated effect size and its precision for the primary outcome, trial registration, and funding were not reported or reported less than 5% in both RCT and non-RCT abstracts. In this study, 4 factors-year of publication, number of trials reported, number of experimental groups reported, and sample size reported-were associated with OQS. That is, abstracts with higher OQS were published more recently, reported a single trial rather than multiple trials, reported number of experimental groups rather than not reported, and reported sample size rather than not reported. These factors explained about 37.5% of the variance of OQS. In AbstractIn publication of a controlled trial article from health science research, the abstract is an important part that readers usually read first and then decide whether to read the whole article; therefore, information provided in the abstract should be adequate. The CONSORT (consolidated standards of reporting trials) for Abstracts checklist has been developed and used as a guideline for authors to prepare their manuscripts. This checklist has also been used as a tool to evaluate published abstracts. The objective...

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“…We also pay incredible fees to have the experiments performed by trained professionals: A cancer study in one species for one substance costs $1 million (Basketter et al, 2012), an inhalation study $2.5 million (Hartung, 2016); a developmental neurotoxicity study costs $1.4 million (Smirnova et al, 2014). These are budgets one can only dream of in academia, where our young-as first checks suggest (Baker et al, 2014), showing no real improvement in reporting. Notably, these findings apply to the scientific literature, not to the guideline studies used to estimate reproducibility in a type of "best-case scenario" above.…”

Section: Animal Experiments Are Not Sufficiently Reproduciblementioning

confidence: 99%

Opinion versus evidence for the need to move away from animal testing

Hartung

2017

ALTEX

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toxicology, animal models are as much misleading as they are helpful. Half of the results are wrong (Ioannidis, 2005) -we only don't know which half… But the statement "half are wrong" is probably rather optimistic. Evidence versus opinion in toxicologyI am a strong advocate of evidence-based approaches, not least because I was one of the initiators of Evidence-based Toxicology (EBT) and the respective Collaboration and hold the first IntroductionFor the 10 th anniversary of Food for Thought … in ALTEX, it seemed appropriate to summarize what we have learned on this journey with respect to the core subject of this journal: the need for alternatives to animal experimentation. The series has mostly focused on toxicology, but here the aspects that apply also to drug development and basic research shall be considered.Sure, we need animal models -when we want to study animals. For example, we have to test drugs for animals in animals. However, when studying human physiology, pharmacology and Food for Thought ... Opinion Versus Evidence for the Need to Move Away from Animal Testing Thomas HartungJohns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), Baltimore, MD, USA, and University of Konstanz, CAAT-Europe, Konstanz, Germany SummaryScience is based on facts and their discourse. Willingly or unwillingly, facts are mixed with opinion, i.e., views or judgments formed, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. This is often necessary, where we have controversial facts or no definitive evidence yet, because we need to take decisions or have to prioritize. Evidence-based approaches aim at identifying the facts and their quality objectively and transparently; they are now increasingly embraced in toxicology, especially by employing systematic reviews, meta-analyses, quality scoring, risk-of-bias tools, etc. These are core to Evidence-based Toxicology. Such approaches aim at minimizing opinion, the "eminence-based" part of science. Animal experiments are the basis of a lot of our textbook knowledge in the life sciences, have helped to develop desperately needed therapies, and have made this world a safer place. However, they represent only one of the many possible approaches to accomplish all these things. Like all approaches, they come with shortcomings, and their true contribution is often overrated. This article aims to summarize their limitations and challenges beside the ethical and economical concerns (i.e., costs and duration as well as costs following wrong decisions in product development): they include reproducibility, inadequate reporting, statistical under-powering, lack of inter-species predictivity, lack of reflection of human diversity and of real-life exposure. Each and every one of these increasingly discussed aspects of animal experiments can be amended, but this would require enormous additional resources. Together, they prompt a need to engineer a new paradigm to ensure the safety of patients and consumers, new products and therapies.

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Two Years Later: Journals Are Not Yet Enforcing the ARRIVE Guidelines on Reporting Standards for Pre-Clinical Animal Studies

Abstract: A study by David Baker and colleagues reveals poor quality of reporting in pre-clinical animal research and a failure of journals to implement the ARRIVE guidelines.

Cited by 276 publications

References 33 publications

Stop this waste of people, animals and money

Stop this waste of people, animals and money

Reporting quality of randomized and non-randomized controlled trial abstracts from chicken research

Opinion versus evidence for the need to move away from animal testing

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