TYPE II ERROR IN THE SPINE SURGICAL LITERATURE
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study examined the occurrence of type II (Beta) error in the spine surgical literature. A literature search from 1966 until present identified twenty-nine randomized control trials, which had a two-group parallel design and reported a non-significant difference in the primary outcome measure. We determined whether these trials had sufficient sample size to detect a 25% and 50% relative change in the primary outcome. Nine studies specifically identified a primary outcome. Four studies reported a sample size calculation. Therefore, twenty-five trials were at risk of committing a type II error. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of potential type II error in randomized controlled trails reported in the spine surgical literature. A literature search was conducted of the Medline, Pubmed, and the Cochrane databases using the keywords of “spine” and “surgery”, between 1967 until present to identify randomized controlled trials involving spine surgery. Trials were included in this study if they were of a two-group design, with at least one of the groups being a surgical cohort, and that reported a non-significant difference in the primary outcome. We determined the frequency for which the primary outcome and sample size calculation was reported. The sample size was assessed to determine whether the trial had sufficient subjects to detect a 25% and 50% relative difference in the primary outcome for a power of 80%. Twenty-nine studies satisfied the inclusion criteria. Nine studies specifically identified a primary outcome. All others reported multiple outcomes with no specified primary measure. Four studies reported a sample size calculation. Of the remaining twenty-five that did not, three had sufficient power and the rest were at significant risk of committing a type II error. The spine surgical literature is plagued with a high potential for type II errors in the published trails with a non-significant outcome. In the spine surgical literature, a randomized controlled trial that fails to reject its null hypothesis, requires careful scrutiny of its methodology to prevent misinterpretation of the 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 | 0.528 | 0.773 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.008 | 0.007 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.024 | 0.019 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.008 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 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".