Cochrane Renal Group

Reviews of Diagnostic Test Accuracy Studies

Information about this initiative can be found on the Cochrane Collaboration's website at http://www.cochrane.org/docs/diagnostictestreviews.htm

New Register of Diagnostic Test Accuracy Studies

We have successfully submitted a proposal to the Cochrane Collaboration Steering Group for two-year funding to develop a Cochrane-wide study-based register of reports of diagnostic test accuracy.

This exciting initiative will ultimately lead to better support for authors and review groups doing Cochrane systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy, by providing a clean and comprehensive register of potential studies for their reviews.

Searching for diagnostic test accuracy studies is more difficult and time consuming than for reports of randomised controlled trials. This is due both to poor reporting by the authors of these studies, and inconsistent indexing in Medline and other databases, making it difficult to develop search strategies that are both sensitive and specific i.e. that will retrieve all relevant studies without too may irrelevant records. 1,2 ,3 This adds an extra burden of time for systematic review authors, who often have to screen thousands of records to find a few relevant to their reviews.

Our objectives for the next two years include:

  • setting up a database to house the register
  • developing and implementing search strategies and protocols for retrieving relevant studies from Medline
  • developing coding to enable accurate retrieval of studies from the register
  • developing and implementing a training package for trials search coordinators in how to search for these studies on Medline and screen search results.
  • providing support in search strategy development for the authors and trials search coordinators of pilot reviews
  • providing a mechanism for re-tagging studies with a searchable field name in Medline e.g. diagnostic accuracy.pt.
The full plan for the register is available on the Cochrane Collaboration's website at http://www.cochrane.org/docs/DiagnosticTestRegisterPlan.doc

We would like to acknowledge the Screening and Test Evaluation Programme (STEP), School of Public Health, University of Sydney, for supporting the development of the register proposal.

 

1.Leeflang M, Scholten R, Reitsma H, Rutjes A, Bossuyt P. 2006. Use of methodological search filters to identify diagnostic accuracy studies can lead to the omission of relevant studies. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 59(3):234-40 PM: 16488353
[PubMed abstract]

2. Doust JA, Pietrzak E, Sanders S, Glasziou PP. 2005. Identifying studies for systematic reviews of diagnostic tests was difficult due to the poor sensitivity and precision of methodologic filters and the lack of information in the abstract. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 58 (5):444-449 PM: 15845330
[PubMed abstract]

3. Mitchell RL, Rinaldi F, Craig JC. 2005. Performance of published search strategies for studies of diagnostic test accuracy (SDTA) in Medline and Embase [abstract 001]. 13th Cochrane Colloquium, Melbourne, Australia, 22-26 October 2005. Program and abstracts:33


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New Reviews
Cochrane Library
Issue 2 April 2008


Immunosuppressive treatment for focal segmental glomerulosclerosis in adults


Interventions for renal vasculitis in adults


16th Cochrane Colloquium
Freiburg, Germany
3-7 Oct 2008

 

Systematic Review Workshops

4-5 Dec 2008
Centre for Kidney Research
The Children's Hospital at Westmead
[Details]

Are you interested in writing a review?

Check our potential review titles or just contact us!

Help us with our Renal Trials Register

Do you have conference proceedings [books or cd-roms] that you no longer need or could lend to us for hadsearching? If so, email Ruth Mitchell for details

Handsearching

Are you interested in helping us handsearch journals or conference proceedings. To find out more about our handsearching activities, email Ruth Mitchell