The Geometric Increase in Meta-Analyses from China in the Genomic Era

Details

• Alternative Title:
  PLoS One
• Personal Author:
  Ioannidis, John P. A. ; Chang, Christine Q. ; Lam, Tram Kim ; Schully, Sheri D. ; Khoury, Muin J.
• Description:
  Meta-analyses are increasingly popular. It is unknown whether this popularity is driven by specific countries and specific meta-analyses types. PubMed was used to identify meta-analyses since 1995 (last update 9/1/2012) and catalogue their types and country of origin. We focused more on meta-analyses from China (the current top producer of meta-analyses) versus the USA (top producer until recently). The annual number of meta-analyses from China increased 40-fold between 2003 and 2011 versus 2.4-fold for the USA. The growth of Chinese meta-analyses was driven by genetics (110-fold increase in 2011 versus 2003). The HuGE Navigator identified 612 meta-analyses of genetic association studies published in 2012 from China versus only 109 from the USA. We compared in-depth 50 genetic association meta-analyses from China versus 50 from USA in 2012. Meta-analyses from China almost always used only literature-based data (92%), and focused on one or two genes (94%) and variants (78%) identified with candidate gene approaches (88%), while many USA meta-analyses used genome-wide approaches and raw data. Both groups usually concluded favorably for the presence of genetic associations (80% versus 74%), but nominal significance (P<0.05) typically sufficed in the China group. Meta-analyses from China typically neglected genome-wide data, and often included candidate gene studies published in Chinese-language journals. Overall, there is an impressive rise of meta-analyses from China, particularly on genetic associations. Since most claimed candidate gene associations are likely false-positives, there is an urgent global need to incorporate genome-wide data and state-of-the art statistical inferences to avoid a flood of false-positive genetic meta-analyses.
• Subjects:
  Bibliometrics Genetic Association Studies Genetic Association Studies/history History, 21st Century Meta-Analysis As Topic PubMed
• Source:
  PLoS One. 2013; 8(6).
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  China
• Volume:
  8
• Issue:
  6
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:3aa0ca841075cee86f8fa89c180094870ee9cc851792ee0c44c65a075357d54d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/13661/cdc_13661_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 262.66 KB ]