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American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access published online on April 10, 2008
American Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/aje/kwn005
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American Journal of Epidemiology © The Author 2008. Published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

How Much of the Data Published in Observational Studies of the Association between Diet and Prostate or Bladder Cancer Is Usable for Meta-Analysis?

Geertruida E. Bekkering1, Ross J. Harris1, Steve Thomas2, Anne-Marie B. Mayer1, Rebecca Beynon1, Andrew R. Ness3, Roger M. Harbord1, Chris Bain4, George Davey Smith1 and Jonathan A. C. Sterne1

1 Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
2 Division of Maxillofacial Surgery, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
3 Department of Oral and Dental Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
4 School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia

Correspondence to Prof. Jonathan A. C. Sterne, Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Canynge Hall, Whiteladies Road, Bristol BS8 2PR, United Kingdom (e-mail: jonathan.sterne{at}bristol.ac.uk).

Received for publication September 16, 2007. Accepted for publication January 3, 2008.

Epidemiologic investigations often report dose-response associations, which may be combined in meta-analyses. The authors examined how often the log odds, risk, or hazard ratio per unit increase in exposure, and its standard error, can be estimated from results reported from observational studies of diet and prostate or bladder cancer so that results are usable in meta-analyses estimating dose-response associations. Eight electronic databases were searched for studies reporting on the association of diet, nutrition, or physical activity with these cancers. A total of 767 papers reported 3,284 results; 1,999 (61%) results, reported in 545 (71%) papers, were usable in dose-response meta-analyses. The most important reason that results were not usable was the absence of sufficient information on exposure levels in the different groups. The proportion of results usable in "high-low" meta-analyses (comparisons of extreme categories) was similar (62%). Results that showed evidence of an association were more likely to be usable than results that found no such evidence. Insufficient detail in reporting of results of observational studies can lead to exclusion of these results from meta-analyses and is an important threat to the validity of systematic reviews of such research. Results providing evidence of associations may be overrepresented in meta-analyses of observational studies.

case-control studies; cohort studies; meta-analysis; publication bias


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