Published in:
01-04-2018 | Editorial
Are systematic reviews and meta-analyses still useful research? We are not sure
Authors:
Morten Hylander Møller, John P. A. Ioannidis, Michael Darmon
Published in:
Intensive Care Medicine
|
Issue 4/2018
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Excerpt
In a traditional systematic review and meta-analysis, the best available evidence is sought, systematically identified, critically appraised and synthesised, in order to try answer some clinical or research question [
1]. Systematic reviews have long been considered at the top of the evidence-based medicine study hierarchy, and the number of published systematic reviews and meta-analyses has increased significantly over the past 20 years [
2]. An assessment using stringent criteria a decade ago suggested that at least 2500 new systematic reviews are published each year [
2]. Since then, their rate of production has increased approximately 10-fold [
3]. About a third of them include quantitative syntheses (meta-analyses) [
3]. …