Spin Is Common in Studies Assessing Robotic Colorectal Surgery
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Spin has been defined previously as "specific reporting that could distort the interpretation of results and mislead readers." OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency and extent of misrepresentation of results in robotic colorectal surgery. DATA SOURCES: Publications referenced in MEDLINE or EMBASE between 1992 and 2014 were included in this study. STUDY SELECTION: Studies comparing robotic colorectal surgery with other techniques with a nonsignificant difference in the primary outcome(s) were included. INTERVENTIONS: Interventions included robotic versus alternative techniques. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Frequency, strategy, and extent of spin, as previously defined, were the main outcome measures RESULTS: : A total of 38 studies (including 24,303 patients) were identified for inclusion in this study. Evidence of spin was found in 82% of studies. The most common form of spin was concluding equivalence between surgical techniques based on nonsignificant differences (76% of abstracts and 71% of conclusions). Claiming improved benefits, despite nonsignificance, was also commonly observed (26% of abstracts and 45% of conclusions). Because of the small sample size, we did not find evidence of an association between spin and study design, type of funding, publication year, or study size. Acknowledging the equivocal nature of the study happened rarely (47% of abstracts and 34% of conclusions). The absence of spin predicted whether authors acknowledged equivocal results (p = 0.02). A total of 50% of studies did not disclose whether they received funding, whereas 39% of studies failed to state whether a conflict of interest existed. LIMITATIONS: A limited number of randomized controlled trials were available. CONCLUSIONS: Spin occurred in >80% of included studies. Many studies concluded that robotic surgery was as safe as more traditional techniques, despite small sample sizes and limited follow-up. Authors often failed to recognize the difference between nonsignificance and equivalence. Failure to disclose financial relationships, which could represent potential conflict(s) of interest, is concerning. Readers of these articles need to be critical of author conclusions, and publishers should ensure that conclusions correspond with the study methods and results.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.318 | 0.617 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.021 | 0.024 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.008 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; the direct Gemma label and the distilled Codex classifier agree on what is shown here.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".