Clinical and Biochemical Outcomes in Transgender Individuals Undergoing Hormone Therapy: Protocol for a Systematic Review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Monitoring of various clinical outcomes and parameters, such as lipid levels, is recommended in transgender individuals undergoing hormone therapies. However, comprehensive data to inform these recommendations is scarce. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to synthesize evidence from existing literature on the effect of exogenous hormone therapy on clinical and biochemical outcomes for transgender adolescents and adults. METHODS: We will search multiple electronic databases and will include prospective and retrospective observational studies with and without a control group. The study population will include transgender individuals undergoing hormone therapy with testosterone or estrogen. Comparisons will include age-matched, cisgender individuals and changes from baseline. Primary outcomes include changes in or the development of abnormal lipid parameters. Secondary outcomes include BMI, weight, height, and blood pressure for age, serum testosterone or estrogen levels, and development of disease including hypertension, diabetes, fatty liver disease, obesity, adverse cardiac events, as well as all-cause mortality. The meta-analysis will pool the studies where applicable, and meta-regressions will be conducted to evaluate effect modifiers. The GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) approach will be used to evaluate the overall certainty of evidence. RESULTS: We will summarize the selection of the eligible studies using a PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) flowchart. The results will be presented in a table summarizing the evidence. Data collection is ongoing, and the paper is expected to be published in Spring 2025. CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review will summarize and evaluate the evidence of the clinical and biochemical outcomes associated with hormone therapies for transgender individuals. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42024483138; https://tinyurl.com/yc4sfvnb. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/57931.
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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 | 0.055 | 0.072 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.015 | 0.019 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.010 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.005 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.071 | 0.007 |
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; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
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".