Chen Menghua, Cui Jing, Zhang Anthony L, Sze Daniel Man-Yuen, Xue Charlie C, May Brian H
1 The China-Australia International Research Centre for Chinese Medicine, School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University , Bundoora, Victoria, Australia .
2 Guangdong Provincial Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences , Guangzhou, China .
J Altern Complement Med. 2018 Feb;24(2):115-124. doi: 10.1089/acm.2017.0065. Epub 2017 Oct 25.
The majority of studies of integrative treatment for colorectal cancer (CRC) have been published in Chinese journals. These studies indicate potential benefits, but concerns have been raised over the quality of trials published in Chinese journals. The CONSORT statement provides a guide for study reporting that has been endorsed by more than 400 international journals. Previous studies have used the CONSORT checklist to assess the quality of randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
This study focused on RCTs of integrative and traditional medicine for CRC published in Chinese journals and assessed: (1) the overall quality of reporting with a focus on methodological aspects; (2) change over time; and (3) the influence of study funding, level of institution conducting the trial, rank of the journal, and the length of the article.
Searches of seven databases identified RCTs. Quality was assessed using CONSORT 2010 with adaptations to facilitate scoring. Additional codes were added for publication year, hospital rank, report length, and status of the journal. Scores of each checklist item, total scores, and scores for eight items associated with RCT methodology were calculated.
Eighty-one studies were included in the main analyses. The RCT methodology subgroup scores were significantly higher in studies: with public funding, conducted by authors from university hospitals, published in higher ranked journals, and in longer articles.
Few Chinese journals mention CONSORT in their author guidelines. In these RCTs on CRC better reporting of RCT methodology was associated with ranking of the journal as "core," public funding of the RCT, and first or correspondent author from a university hospital but the quality of reporting had not significantly improved in 15 years. As the volume of scientific information produced in China grows, it is imperative that there is growth in the quality of this information.
大多数关于结直肠癌（CRC）综合治疗的研究发表在中国期刊上。这些研究显示了潜在益处，但人们对中国期刊上发表的试验质量提出了担忧。CONSORT声明为研究报告提供了指南，已得到400多家国际期刊认可。以往研究已使用CONSORT清单评估随机对照试验（RCT）的质量。
本研究聚焦于发表在中国期刊上的CRC中西医结合RCT，评估：（1）报告的整体质量，重点是方法学方面；（2）随时间的变化；（3）研究资金、开展试验的机构级别、期刊排名及文章长度的影响。
通过检索七个数据库识别RCT。使用CONSORT 2010评估质量，并进行调整以方便评分。增加了关于发表年份、医院排名、报告长度和期刊状态的附加编码。计算每个清单项目的得分、总分以及与RCT方法相关的八个项目的得分。
81项研究纳入主要分析。在以下研究中，RCT方法学亚组得分显著更高：有公共资金资助、由大学医院作者开展、发表在排名较高的期刊上以及文章较长的研究。
很少有中国期刊在作者指南中提及CONSORT。在这些关于CRC的RCT中，RCT方法学更好的报告与期刊被列为“核心”、RCT的公共资金资助以及来自大学医院的第一作者或通讯作者相关，但报告质量在15年中并未显著提高。随着中国产生的科学信息量增加，提高这些信息的质量势在必行。
