ArticleNeurosurgical review2024
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses in neurosurgery Part II: a guide to designing the protocol.
Article in Neurosurgical review, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Endovascular treatment versus microsurgical clipping in elderly patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Neuroradiology · 2026Pooled it
- Magnetic resonance imaging and the evaluation of vestibular schwannomas: a systematic review.Neuroradiology · 2026Pooled it
- Outcomes of post-operative drain use after cranioplasty surgery - a systematic review and meta-analysis.Acta neurochirurgica · 2026Pooled it
- Microsurgical clipping versus endovascular therapy for distal anterior cerebral artery aneurysms: A meta-analysis of double-armed comparative studies.Neurosurgical review · 2026Pooled it
- Heterogeneity in definitions of surgical site infection after cranial surgery limits the validity of research findings in neurosurgery: a systematic review.Neurosurgical review · 2025Pooled it
- Traumatic posterior fossa extradural hematoma in children: a meta-analysis and institutional experience of its clinical course, treatment and outcomes.Neurosurgical review · 2024Pooled it
- Navigating the use of artificial intelligence in the peer review process: Cautionary pearls from the editorial board.Neurosurgical review · 2026Article
- Safety and efficacy of carbon fiber-reinforced polyetheretherketone implants in primary and metastatic spinal tumors: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2026Review
- Consensus on the use of artificial intelligence in the management and measurement of vestibular schwannomas: A protocol for a modified delphi consensus.Neuroradiology · 2026Article
- Epileptiform patterns in electroencephalography and clinical myoclonic seizures predict unfavorable outcomes in patients after cardiac arrest: a meta-analysis protocol.Systematic reviews · 2026Article
- Article
- The delicate nature of a constructive peer review: pearls from the editorial board.Neurosurgical review · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Despite clearly established guidelines, recent audits have found the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses (SRMAs) within neurosurgery to be relatively lackluster in methodological rigor and compliance. Protocols of SRMAs allow for planning and documentation of review methods, guard against arbitrary decision-making during the review process, and enable readers to assess for the presence of selective reporting. To aid transparency, authors should provide sufficient detail in their protocol so that the readers could reproduce the study themselves. Development of our guideline drew heavily from the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses Protocols (PRISMA-P) initiative. The objective of this article is not to enumerate every detail of this checklist, but to provide guidance to authors preparing their protocol, with examples, for a systematic review in neurosurgery. Particularly, we emphasize on the PICO framework - population (P), interventions (I), comparators (C), outcomes (O) - which is central to constructing a clinical question, defining the scope of the systematic review, defining and prioritizing the primary outcome, to specifying the eligibility criteria, designing the search strategy, and identifying potential sources of heterogeneity. We encourage our readers to make use of this guideline alongside the PRISMA-P 2015 statement, when drafting and appraising systematic review protocols.
Indexed as
Identifiers
39060698What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.