The Transplant Library - Selection of Reviews

Selected systematic reviews and meta-analyses have been added to the Transplant Library from 2008. New systematic reviews are identified from Medline and added monthly.

The Centre uses a number of inclusion criteria and to be included a report should satisfy at least 3 out of 5 criteria.

  1. The study addresses a clearly focused question and describes the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the review (*mandatory)
    A clear and well defined question is specified. The question defines the inclusion and exclusion criteria. There should be a description of the study design, study population, intervention(s)/tests and outcomes.
  2. The literature search is sufficiently rigorous to identify all the relevant studies (*mandatory).
    At least one database should have been searched.
  3. Study quality is assessed and reported.
    The review should have used clear criteria to assess the methodological quality and these criteria should be reported for each study included in the review.
  4. Sufficient details of the individual included studies are presented.
    The review should include a table with details of the individual studies or include a narrative description of the studies. The table or text would include information relating to study design, sample size, participant characteristics, interventions, outcomes and follow up.
  5. An adequate description of the methodology used to analyse the data is included, and the methods used are appropriate to the question.
    The approach used to analyse the data should be described and justified where appropriate. This may include the choice of statistical test used to analyse the outcome data, meta-analytical techniques and approaches to dealing with heterogeneity, including the specification of any subgroup analyses and sensitivity analyses.