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. 2025 Mar:53:183-192.
doi: 10.1016/j.knee.2024.12.013. Epub 2025 Jan 8.

Abstracts of systematic reviews and meta-analyses investigating meniscal root repair exhibit a high prevalence of reporting bias

Jacob L Kotlier  1 , Pranit Kumaran  1 , Amir Fathi  1 , Joshua M Yazditabar  1 , Eric H Lin  2 , Cory K Mayfield  1 , Frank A Petrigliano  1 , Joseph N Liu  1
Affiliations

Abstracts of systematic reviews and meta-analyses investigating meniscal root repair exhibit a high prevalence of reporting bias

Jacob L Kotlier et al. Knee. 2025 Mar.

Abstract

Background: To present rates of reporting bias in systematic reviews and meta-analyses investigating meniscal root repair.

Methods: In this systematic review, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases were queried for studies that investigated meniscal root tears treated with root repair. Included studies were systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses published in peer-reviewed journals in the English language with available full-texts. Each abstract was graded in a binary fashion for 15 most severe types of spin. Fisher's exact test was used to determine if spin varied significantly by year, journal, level of evidence, funding source, or A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews Version 2 (AMSTAR 2) confidence category.

Results: Twenty studies were included. All abstracts exhibited spin with a maximum of eight types of spin. The most prevalent categories of spin were "Misleading Reporting" (n = 18), "Inappropriate Extrapolation" (n = 13), and "Misleading Interpretation" (n = 12). There were significant associations between external funding and spin types: 5 ("The conclusion claims the beneficial effect of the experimental treatment despite a high risk of bias in primary studies") (p = 0.019), 9 ("Conclusion claims the beneficial effect of the experimental treatment despite reporting bias") (p < 0.001), and 15 ("Conclusion extrapolates the review's findings to a different population or setting") (p = 0.049). AMSTAR 2 confidence rating was either "low" (n = 2) or "critically low" (n = 18) in all 20 studies.

Conclusion: This study demonstrated a high prevalence of reporting bias in the abstracts of systematic reviews and meta-analyses investigating meniscal root repair, with significant associations with external funding.

Keywords: Meniscal Root Repair; Reporting Bias.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Frank A Petrigliano reports a relationship with Exactech Inc that includes: consulting or advisory. Frank A Petrigliano reports a relationship with Stryker Orthopaedics that includes: consulting or advisory. Frank A Petrigliano reports a relationship with OSSIO Inc that includes: consulting or advisory. Joseph N Liu reports a relationship with Stryker Orthopaedics that includes: speaking and lecture fees. Joseph N Liu reports a relationship with Innocoll Biotherapeutics NA Inc that includes: travel reimbursement. Joseph N Liu reports a relationship with American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons that includes: board membership. Joseph N Liu reports a relationship with Arthroscopy Association of North America that includes: board membership. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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