Conclusions in systematic reviews of mammography for breast cancer screening and associations with review design and author characteristics

Conclusions about specific age groups were graded as favourable if they stated that there were meaningful benefits, that benefits of mammography outweighed harms, or that harms were inconsequential. The main outcome measures were the prop ortions of favourable conclusions relative to review design and author characteristics.ResultsFrom 59 conclusions identified in 50 reviews, 42% (25/59) were graded as favourable by two investigators. Among the conclusions produced by clinicians, 63% (12/19) were graded as favourable compared to 32% (13/40) from other authors. In the 50 –69 age group where the largest proportion of systematic reviews were focused, conclusions drawn by authors without financial competing interests (odds ratio 0.06; 95% CI 0.07–0.56) and non-clinicians (odds ratio 0.11; 95% CI 0.01–0.84) were less likely to be graded as favourable. There was no trend in the proportion of favourable conclusions over the period, and we found no significant association between review design characteristics and favourable conclusions.ConclusionsDifferences in the conclusions of systematic reviews of the evidence for mammography have persisted for 15  years. We found no strong evidence that design characteristics were associated with greater support for the benefits of mammography in routine breast cancer screening. Instead, the results suggested that the specific expertise and competing interests of the authors influenced the conclusions of sy stematic reviews.
Source: Systematic Reviews - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research