TY - JOUR
T1 - Shortcomings in the evaluation of biomarkers in ovarian cancer: A systematic review
AU - Olsen, Maria
AU - Ghannad, Mona
AU - Lok, Christianne
AU - Bossuyt, Patrick M.
PY - 2019/12/18
Y1 - 2019/12/18
N2 - Shortcomings in study design have been hinted at as one of the possible causes of failures in the translation of discovered biomarkers into the care of ovarian cancer patients, but systematic assessments of biomarker studies are scarce. We aimed to document study design features of recently reported evaluations of biomarkers in ovarian cancer. We performed a systematic search in PubMed (MEDLINE) for reports of studies evaluating the clinical performance of putative biomarkers in ovarian cancer. We extracted data on study designs and characteristics. Our search resulted in 1026 studies; 329 (32%) were found eligible after screening, of which we evaluated the first 200. Of these, 93 (47%) were single center studies. Few studies reported eligibility criteria (17%), sampling methods (10%) or a sample size justification or power calculation (3%). Studies often used disjoint groups of patients, sometimes with extreme phenotypic contrasts; 46 studies included healthy controls (23%), but only five (3%) had exclusively included advanced stage cases. Our findings confirm the presence of suboptimal features in clinical evaluations of ovarian cancer biomarkers. This may lead to premature claims about the clinical value of these markers or, alternatively, the risk of discarding potential biomarkers that are urgently needed.
AB - Shortcomings in study design have been hinted at as one of the possible causes of failures in the translation of discovered biomarkers into the care of ovarian cancer patients, but systematic assessments of biomarker studies are scarce. We aimed to document study design features of recently reported evaluations of biomarkers in ovarian cancer. We performed a systematic search in PubMed (MEDLINE) for reports of studies evaluating the clinical performance of putative biomarkers in ovarian cancer. We extracted data on study designs and characteristics. Our search resulted in 1026 studies; 329 (32%) were found eligible after screening, of which we evaluated the first 200. Of these, 93 (47%) were single center studies. Few studies reported eligibility criteria (17%), sampling methods (10%) or a sample size justification or power calculation (3%). Studies often used disjoint groups of patients, sometimes with extreme phenotypic contrasts; 46 studies included healthy controls (23%), but only five (3%) had exclusively included advanced stage cases. Our findings confirm the presence of suboptimal features in clinical evaluations of ovarian cancer biomarkers. This may lead to premature claims about the clinical value of these markers or, alternatively, the risk of discarding potential biomarkers that are urgently needed.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=85064396042&origin=inward
UR - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30956227
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1515/cclm-2019-0038
DO - https://doi.org/10.1515/cclm-2019-0038
M3 - Review article
C2 - 30956227
SN - 1434-6621
VL - 58
SP - 3
EP - 10
JO - Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine
JF - Clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine
IS - 1
ER -