Abstracts of systematic reviews and meta-analyses investigating meniscal root repair exhibit a high prevalence of reporting bias

Background: To present rates of reporting bias in systematic reviews and meta-analyses investigating meniscal root repair.

Methods: In this systematic review, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases were queried for studies that investigated meniscal root tears treated with root repair. Included studies were systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses published in peer-reviewed journals in the English language with available full-texts. Each abstract was graded in a binary fashion for 15 most severe types of spin. Fisher's exact test was used to determine if spin varied significantly by year, journal, level of evidence, funding source, or A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews Version 2 (AMSTAR 2) confidence category.

Results: Twenty studies were included. All abstracts exhibited spin with a maximum of eight types of spin. The most prevalent categories of spin were "Misleading Reporting" (n = 18), "Inappropriate Extrapolation" (n = 13), and "Misleading Interpretation" (n = 12). There were significant associations between external funding and spin types: 5 ("The conclusion claims the beneficial effect of the experimental treatment despite a high risk of bias in primary studies") (p = 0.019), 9 ("Conclusion claims the beneficial effect of the experimental treatment despite reporting bias") (p < 0.001), and 15 ("Conclusion extrapolates the review's findings to a different population or setting") (p = 0.049). AMSTAR 2 confidence rating was either "low" (n = 2) or "critically low" (n = 18) in all 20 studies.

Conclusion: This study demonstrated a high prevalence of reporting bias in the abstracts of systematic reviews and meta-analyses investigating meniscal root repair, with significant associations with external funding.