Stallings Elena, Antequera Alba, López-Alcalde Jesús, García-Martín Miguel, Urrútia Gerard, Zamora Javier
Clinical Biostatistics Unit, Instituto Ramón y Cajal de Investigación Sanitaria, 28034 Madrid, Spain.
CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), 28029 Madrid, Spain.
J Pers Med. 2021 May 21;11(6):441. doi: 10.3390/jpm11060441.
Sex is a common baseline factor collected in studies that has the potential to be a prognostic factor (PF) in several clinical areas. In recent years, research on sex as a PF has increased; however, this influx of new studies frequently shows conflicting results across the same treatment or disease state. Thus, systematic reviews (SRs) addressing sex as a PF may help us to better understand diseases and further personalize healthcare. We wrote this article to offer insights into the challenges we encountered when conducting SRs on sex as a PF and suggestions on how to overcome these obstacles, regardless of the clinical domain. When carrying out a PF SR with sex as the index factor, it is important to keep in mind the modifications that must be made in various SR stages, such as modifying the PF section of CHARMS-PF, adjusting certain sections of QUIPS and extracting data on the sex and gender terms used throughout the studies. In this paper, we provide an overview of the lessons learned from carrying out our reviews on sex as a PF in different disciplines and now call on researchers, funding agencies and journals to realize the importance of studying sex as a PF.
性别是研究中收集的一个常见基线因素，在多个临床领域有可能成为一个预后因素（PF）。近年来，关于性别作为一个预后因素的研究有所增加；然而，这些新研究的大量涌入常常在相同的治疗或疾病状态下显示出相互矛盾的结果。因此，将性别作为一个预后因素的系统评价（SRs）可能有助于我们更好地理解疾病，并进一步实现医疗保健的个性化。我们撰写本文是为了深入探讨在进行关于性别作为一个预后因素的系统评价时遇到的挑战，以及如何克服这些障碍的建议，无论临床领域如何。在以性别作为索引因素进行预后因素系统评价时，重要的是要记住在各个系统评价阶段必须进行的修改，例如修改CHARM-PF的预后因素部分、调整QUIPS的某些部分以及提取整个研究中使用的性别术语的数据。在本文中，我们概述了在不同学科中对性别作为一个预后因素进行评价所学到的经验教训，现在呼吁研究人员、资助机构和期刊认识到研究性别作为一个预后因素的重要性。
