Meta-Analysis
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Meta-Anal. Feb 26, 2015; 3(1): 20-25
Published online Feb 26, 2015. doi: 10.13105/wjma.v3.i1.20
Fate of meta-analyses: The case of Helicobacter pylori
György Miklós Buzás
György Miklós Buzás, Department of Gastroenterology, Ferencváros Health Centre, 1095 Budapest, Hungary
Author contributions: Buzás GM designed the manuscript, acquired and analysed the data and drafted the paper independently.
Conflict-of-interest: I disclose any financial or personal relationship with other people/organization that could inappropriately influence their work (employment, consultancies, stock ownerships, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding.
Data sharing: I declare that the data the present manuscript is based on meta-analysis published in the literature, there are no personal data concerning the patients or any other person, and the manuscript was not shared with any unauthorized person. There were no persons/participants who would have given informed consent, so there are definitely no harms outweighing the potential benefits.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: György Miklós Buzás, MD, PhD, Department of Gastroenterology, Ferencváros Health Centre, Mester utca 45, 1095 Budapest, Hungary. drbgym@gmail.com
Telephone: +36-1-4554571 Fax: +36-1-4554504
Received: October 2, 2014
Peer-review started: October 6, 2014
First decision: October 28, 2014
Revised: November 20, 2014
Accepted: December 3, 2014
Article in press: December 10, 2014
Published online: February 26, 2015
Processing time: 109 Days and 20.2 Hours
Abstract

AIM: To overview the current diversity of meta-analysis and the implementation of their results in international guidelines.

METHODS: Relevant meta-analysis were identified from PubMed/Medline. The topics of meta-analyses were determined. Some topics (genetics, extragastric tumors) were analysed separately. Core journals publishing meta-analyses on Helicobacter pylori were ranked. The rate of citation of meta-analysis in major guidelines was calculated.

RESULTS: Between 1992 and 2014, some 356 meta-analyses were published on PubMed. These mainly appeared in core journals, but were also found in 128 other journals. Eradicating of the infection was the most addressed topic with 134 articles. Meta-analyses were rarely used in formulating statements and recommendations in the international guidelines. In other topics - genetics, extraintestinal manifestations - meta-analyses were rather overused.

CONCLUSION: The implementation of meta-analysis in current guidelines is rather rare, while other topics benefit from many studies. A more extensive use of meta-analyses in evidence-based medicine is recommended in the future, otherwise their continuous proliferation will lose reason and scientific significance.

Keywords: Consensus guidelines; Helicobacter pylori; Meta-analysis; Randomised controlled trials; Systematic review

Core tip: The article provides a subjective overview of the meta-analysis published on the subject of Helicobacter pylori, profiling the topic, their distribution in literature, giving examples of over- and underuse, and revealing a discordance between the low implementation of meta-analysis in guidelines and their importance as top-level evidence.