The STROBE systematic review

Dr Sinéad Langan and four of the other steering group members have completed a systematic review on the quality of reporting of epidemiological studies in dermatology on behalf of the European Dermatoepidemiology Network (EDEN). The aim of this review was to determine how well observational studies published over a three year period from 2004 to 2007 in four leading dermatology journals comply with the STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) checklists. This study was published in the Archives of Dermatology. The list of studies relevant to this research study is available using the link below. This body of work is now complete.

This work has led to the adoption of the STROBE checklists by the British Journal of Dermatology and it is hoped other dermatology journals will encourage the use of these checklists in the near future to improve the quality of reporting.

A French group, led by Prof. Sylvie Bastuji-Garin, a Steering group member is now undertaking further research to determine the impact of STROBE on the quality of reporting following its introduction (observational studies published over a seven year period from 2004 to 2010).


Reference:
von Elm E, Altman DG, Egger M, Pocock SJ, Gøtzsche PC, et al. The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement: Guidelines for Reporting Observational Studies. PLoS Medicine Vol. 4, No. 10, e296 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040296

Langan S, et al. The reporting of observational research studies in dermatology journals - A literature-based study. Arch Dermatol 2010; 146(5):534-41.

Langan SM, Schmitt J, Coenraads PJ, Svensson A, von Elm E, Williams HC; European Dermato-Epidemiology Network (EDEN). STROBE and reporting observational studies in dermatology. Br J Dermatol. 2011;164(1):1-3

Team:
L Naldi, A Svensson, TL Diepgen, HC Williams, JN Bouwes Bavinck, P Elsner, PJ Coenraads, JJ Grob

Aim:
To identify published therapeutic trials of psoriasis treatments over a 23 year period, to explore study design and quality issues in these publications, and to make recommendations for good clinical trial design and reporting for psoriasis trials.

Method:
Combination of hand-searching and electronic searching for psoriasis treatment trials in medical journals published in English, German, French, Italian and Dutch language.
Distribution of eligible publications among an expert panel. Assessment of quality in pairs, using a standard data extraction form.
Analysis of the data generated by the data extraction form.

The EDEN psoriasis project is an ongoing survey of RCTs of psoriasis published in 14 leading medical and dermatological journals. A first analysis was done on studies published from 1977 to 2000, showing major problems with reporting and clinical relevance. A further update was done with analysis of studies published from January 2001 up to December 2006. Recent trials in psoriasis tend to be larger, longer, more likely to include PASI and quality of life measures, more likely to be sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry, and more likely to adopt a placebo control arm. There is an urgent need for comparative RCTs in psoriasis, especially to address longer term issues such as duration and maintenance of remission using different therapeutic options.

Future: EDEN is considering setting up a project group to continue with this project.

References:
Naldi L, Svensson A, Diepgen T, Elsner P, Grob JJ, Coenraads PJ, Bavinck JN, Williams H; European Dermato-Epidemiology Network. Randomized clinical trials for psoriasis 1977-2000: the EDEN survey. J Invest Dermatol. 2003;120(5):738-41.

Naldi L, Svensson A, Zenoni D, Diepgen T, Elsner P, Grob JJ, Coenraads PJ, Bouwes Bavinck JN, Maccagni A, Linder D, Williams H. Comparators, study duration, outcome measures and sponsorship in therapeutic trials of psoriasis: update of the EDEN Psoriasis Survey 2001-2006. Br J Dermatol 2010 Feb 1;162(2):384-9. Epub 2009 Sep 24.