Do Study Abstracts Inform -- or Misinform?
Do Study Abstracts Inform -- or Misinform?
Hello. I am Dr. Maurie Markman from Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Philadelphia. I wanted to briefly discuss a very interesting study that appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The article is titled "Discordance Between Conclusions Stated in the Abstract and Conclusions in the Article: Analysis of Published Randomized Controlled Trials of Systemic Therapy in Lung Cancer." This is a very interesting, and perhaps problematic, issue. With the tremendous amount of literature that we are now seeing, it is common practice for clinicians (in this case, oncologists) to read an abstract but not the full paper, believing that the peer-review process has been successful in making certain that the conclusion in the abstract reflects the findings of the study, as described in the text of the article. This study challenges that assertion, in that of 114 randomized controlled trials identified by the investigators, in fully 10% there was no concordance between the conclusions in the abstract and the conclusions in the paper itself, with most of these discordances being that the abstract suggested greater activity than was documented in the body of the paper.
Several reasonable implications can be drawn from this study. First, readers of articles in the peer-reviewed literature must be cautious in believing the conclusions in an abstract, even the results of randomized controlled trials, particularly if that information is going to be used to inform patient care. The second implication is that the peer-review process needs to be improved, because at least according to Altwairgi and colleagues, who conducted this study, the issue is not that the body of the article is wrong but that the reader must be certain that the abstract and the text are concordant. I encourage you to read this interesting article, and clearly, one would like to see other reports in the literature that support or perhaps refute the conclusions of this very provocative study. I thank you for your attention.
Hello. I am Dr. Maurie Markman from Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Philadelphia. I wanted to briefly discuss a very interesting study that appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The article is titled "Discordance Between Conclusions Stated in the Abstract and Conclusions in the Article: Analysis of Published Randomized Controlled Trials of Systemic Therapy in Lung Cancer." This is a very interesting, and perhaps problematic, issue. With the tremendous amount of literature that we are now seeing, it is common practice for clinicians (in this case, oncologists) to read an abstract but not the full paper, believing that the peer-review process has been successful in making certain that the conclusion in the abstract reflects the findings of the study, as described in the text of the article. This study challenges that assertion, in that of 114 randomized controlled trials identified by the investigators, in fully 10% there was no concordance between the conclusions in the abstract and the conclusions in the paper itself, with most of these discordances being that the abstract suggested greater activity than was documented in the body of the paper.
Several reasonable implications can be drawn from this study. First, readers of articles in the peer-reviewed literature must be cautious in believing the conclusions in an abstract, even the results of randomized controlled trials, particularly if that information is going to be used to inform patient care. The second implication is that the peer-review process needs to be improved, because at least according to Altwairgi and colleagues, who conducted this study, the issue is not that the body of the article is wrong but that the reader must be certain that the abstract and the text are concordant. I encourage you to read this interesting article, and clearly, one would like to see other reports in the literature that support or perhaps refute the conclusions of this very provocative study. I thank you for your attention.
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