ArticleInternational journal of preventive medicine2026
Critical Appraisal of Causality Observational Studies: A Case-Study of the Effect of Tattoo on Malignant Lymphoma.
Article in International journal of preventive medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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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.
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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.
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
Background: Observational studies are often used for assessing the causal effect of an exposure on the outcome though they suffer from several validity threats such as confounding, selection bias, measurement bias, over-adjustment bias, model misspecification/failure bias, and cognitive bias. Methods: We illustrate how to appraise causality studies through a recently published paper assessing the effect of tattoo on malignant lymphoma. Results: We argue how the study results should be cautiously interpreted in terms of bias in the design and analysis as well as the magnitude of the effect/impact measure values compatible with data. Also we show how a better understanding of the study results can be achieved by calculating some useful indices. Conclusions: Even with sophisticated analytic methods, causal inference from observational studies is a risky business, and so their results should be critically appraised.
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