Preferential reporting of significant p-values in radiology journal abstracts

M. S. To; L. Lu; M. Tran; C. Chong

doi:10.1016/j.crad.2022.05.025

Preferential reporting of significant p-values in radiology journal abstracts

M. S. To, L. Lu, M. Tran, C. Chong

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

AIM: To assess the prevalence of publication bias in the radiology literature, data-mining techniques were used to extract p-values in abstracts published in key radiology journals over the past 20 years.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 34,699 abstracts published in Radiology, Investigative Radiology, European Radiology, American Journal of Roentgenology, and American Journal of Neuroradiology published between January 2000 and December 2019 were included in the analysis. Automated text mining using regular expressions was used to mine abstracts for p-values.

RESULTS: The text mining algorithm detected 43,489 p-values, the majority (82.4%) of which were reported as “significant”, i.e., p<0.05. There has also been an increased propensity to report more p-values over time. The distribution of p-values showed a step change at the conventional significance threshold of 0.05. The odds ratio of a “significant” p-value being reported in the abstract compared to the full text was calculated to be 2.52 (95% confidence interval 1.78–3.58; p<0.001). Taken together, these results provide strong evidence for selective reporting of significant p-values in abstracts.

CONCLUSION: Statistically significant p-values are preferentially reported in radiology journal abstracts.

Original language	English
Article number	743-748
Pages (from-to)	743-748
Number of pages	6
Journal	Clinical Radiology
Volume	77
Issue number	10
Early online date	7 Jul 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crad.2022.05.025
Publication status	Published - Oct 2022

Keywords

P-values
Radiology literature
Data mining

Access to Document

10.1016/j.crad.2022.05.025Licence: In Copyright

Cite this

@article{6640eb5f1c734e4f8a330ef6ca0d5f88,

title = "Preferential reporting of significant p-values in radiology journal abstracts",

abstract = "AIM: To assess the prevalence of publication bias in the radiology literature, data-mining techniques were used to extract p-values in abstracts published in key radiology journals over the past 20 years. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 34,699 abstracts published in Radiology, Investigative Radiology, European Radiology, American Journal of Roentgenology, and American Journal of Neuroradiology published between January 2000 and December 2019 were included in the analysis. Automated text mining using regular expressions was used to mine abstracts for p-values.RESULTS: The text mining algorithm detected 43,489 p-values, the majority (82.4%) of which were reported as “significant”, i.e., p<0.05. There has also been an increased propensity to report more p-values over time. The distribution of p-values showed a step change at the conventional significance threshold of 0.05. The odds ratio of a “significant” p-value being reported in the abstract compared to the full text was calculated to be 2.52 (95% confidence interval 1.78–3.58; p<0.001). Taken together, these results provide strong evidence for selective reporting of significant p-values in abstracts. CONCLUSION: Statistically significant p-values are preferentially reported in radiology journal abstracts.",

keywords = "P-values, Radiology literature, Data mining",

author = "To, {M. S.} and L. Lu and M. Tran and C. Chong",

year = "2022",

month = oct,

doi = "10.1016/j.crad.2022.05.025",

language = "English",

volume = "77",

pages = "743--748",

journal = "Clinical Radiology",

issn = "0009-9260",

number = "10",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Preferential reporting of significant p-values in radiology journal abstracts

AU - To, M. S.

AU - Lu, L.

AU - Tran, M.

AU - Chong, C.

PY - 2022/10

Y1 - 2022/10

N2 - AIM: To assess the prevalence of publication bias in the radiology literature, data-mining techniques were used to extract p-values in abstracts published in key radiology journals over the past 20 years. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 34,699 abstracts published in Radiology, Investigative Radiology, European Radiology, American Journal of Roentgenology, and American Journal of Neuroradiology published between January 2000 and December 2019 were included in the analysis. Automated text mining using regular expressions was used to mine abstracts for p-values.RESULTS: The text mining algorithm detected 43,489 p-values, the majority (82.4%) of which were reported as “significant”, i.e., p<0.05. There has also been an increased propensity to report more p-values over time. The distribution of p-values showed a step change at the conventional significance threshold of 0.05. The odds ratio of a “significant” p-value being reported in the abstract compared to the full text was calculated to be 2.52 (95% confidence interval 1.78–3.58; p<0.001). Taken together, these results provide strong evidence for selective reporting of significant p-values in abstracts. CONCLUSION: Statistically significant p-values are preferentially reported in radiology journal abstracts.

AB - AIM: To assess the prevalence of publication bias in the radiology literature, data-mining techniques were used to extract p-values in abstracts published in key radiology journals over the past 20 years. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 34,699 abstracts published in Radiology, Investigative Radiology, European Radiology, American Journal of Roentgenology, and American Journal of Neuroradiology published between January 2000 and December 2019 were included in the analysis. Automated text mining using regular expressions was used to mine abstracts for p-values.RESULTS: The text mining algorithm detected 43,489 p-values, the majority (82.4%) of which were reported as “significant”, i.e., p<0.05. There has also been an increased propensity to report more p-values over time. The distribution of p-values showed a step change at the conventional significance threshold of 0.05. The odds ratio of a “significant” p-value being reported in the abstract compared to the full text was calculated to be 2.52 (95% confidence interval 1.78–3.58; p<0.001). Taken together, these results provide strong evidence for selective reporting of significant p-values in abstracts. CONCLUSION: Statistically significant p-values are preferentially reported in radiology journal abstracts.

KW - P-values

KW - Radiology literature

KW - Data mining

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133649773&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.crad.2022.05.025

DO - 10.1016/j.crad.2022.05.025

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85133649773

SN - 0009-9260

VL - 77

SP - 743

EP - 748

JO - Clinical Radiology

JF - Clinical Radiology

IS - 10

M1 - 743-748

ER -

Preferential reporting of significant p-values in radiology journal abstracts

Abstract

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this