Background The use of systematic literature review to inform evidence based practice in
diagnostics is rapidly expanding. Although the primary diagnostic literature is extensive …

Background Over the last decade there have been a number of guidelines published, aimed
at improving the quality of reporting in published studies and reviews. In systematic reviews …

Objectives To examine how authors explore and report on sources of heterogeneity in
systematic reviews of diagnostic accuracy studies. Study Design and Setting A cohort of …

The final common pathway for most systematic reviews is a statistical summary of the data,
or meta-analysis. The complex methods used in meta-analyses should always be …

Background There are a variety of ways in which accuracy of clinical tests can be
summarised in systematic reviews. Variation in reporting of summary measures has only …

Background Because meta‐analyses are increasingly prevalent and cited in the medical
literature, it is important that tools are available to assess their methodological quality. When …

Background As an increasingly large number of meta-analyses are published, quantitative
methods are needed to help clinicians and systematic review teams determine when meta …

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: To review existing quality assessment tools for
diagnostic accuracy studies and to examine to what extent quality was assessed and …

The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical background for performing and reading
systematic reviews of diagnostic studies. We first discuss items for assessment of …

Diagnostic accuracy may be overestimated when using certain study designs; thus, the
inclusion of studies using different designs in meta-analyses may have important effects on …