A Survey of the Prevalence and Impact of Reporting Guideline Endorsement in Pathology Journals

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of reporting guideline endorsement in pathology journals and to estimate the impact of guideline endorsement.

Methods: We compared the quality of reporting in two sets of studies: (1) studies published in journals that explicitly mentioned a guideline vs studies published in journals that did not and (2) studies that cited a guideline vs studies that did not. The quality of reporting in prognostic biomarker studies was assessed using the REporting recommendations for tumor MARKer prognostic studies (REMARK) guideline.

Results: We found that six (10%) of the 59 leading pathology journals explicitly mention reporting guidelines in the instructions to authors. Only one journal required authors to submit a checklist. There was significant variation in the rate at which various REMARK items were reported (P < .001). Journal endorsement was associated with more complete reporting (P = .04). Studies that cited REMARK had greater adherence to the REMARK reporting guidelines than studies that did not (P = .02).

Conclusions: The prevalence of guideline endorsement is relatively low in pathology journals, but guideline endorsement may improve the quality of reporting.