What is the Quality of the Orthopaedic Literature?

Author(s):  
Raman Mundi ◽  
Harman Chaudhry ◽  
Raj Sharma ◽  
Emil Schemitsch ◽  
Mohit Bhandari
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kitchai Luksameearunothai ◽  
Yash Paul Chaudhry ◽  
Sorawut Thamyongkit ◽  
Xiaofeng Jia ◽  
Erik A. Hasenboehler

Abstract Background In biomedical research, level of evidence (LOE) indicates the quality of a study. Recent studies evaluating orthopaedic trauma literature between 1998-2013 have indicated that LOE in this field has improved. The objective of this study was to determine the validity of one such study by 1) comparing our results and how they relate to more recent years of publications; and 2) assessing how our findings may be used to estimate future changes. Methods A total of 3,449 articles published from 2013 to 2018 in The Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma (JOT); Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, American Volume (JBJS-Am); and Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research (CORR) were evaluated for their LOE. Articles published in JBJS-Am or CORR were classified as trauma or nontrauma studies; articles published in JOT were considered trauma studies. Articles were assigned a LOE using guidance published by JBJS-Am in 2015. Results The percentage of total high-level (level I or II) trauma and nontrauma articles published in JOT, JBJS-Am, and CORR decreased from 2013 to 2018 (trauma 23.1% to 19.2%, p = 0.190; nontrauma 28.8% to 24.9%, p = 0.037). JBJS-Am published the highest percentage of level-I trauma studies, and CORR published the lowest percentage of level-IV studies. JBJS-Am and CORR published higher percentages of level-I trauma studies and lower percentages of level-IV nontrauma studies than all trauma studies. Conclusions Based on our results we cannot validate the findings of previous studies as we found the overall LOE of both trauma and nontrauma orthopaedic literature has decreased in recent years. JBJS-Am published a greater percentage of high-level studies than did JOT and CORR. Although the number and percentage of high-level studies published in JOT increased during the study period, it still lagged behind JBJS-Am and CORR.


2018 ◽  
Vol 100-B (10) ◽  
pp. 1270-1274 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Manta ◽  
E. Opingari ◽  
A. H. Saleh ◽  
N. Simunovic ◽  
A. Duong ◽  
...  

Aims The aims of this systematic review were to describe the quantity and methodological quality of meta-analyses in orthopaedic surgery published during the last 17 years. Materials and Methods MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PubMed, between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2016, were searched for meta-analyses in orthopaedic surgery dealing with at least one surgical intervention. Meta-analyses were included if the interventions involved a human muscle, ligament, bone or joint. Results A total of 392 meta-analyses met eligibility criteria, for which the mean AMSTAR quality score was 7.1/11. There was a positive correlation between the year of publication and the quality of the meta-analysis (r = 0.238, p < 0.001). Between 2000 and 2011, the mean AMSTAR score corresponded to that of a medium quality review. However, between 2012 and 2016, the mean scores have been consistently equivalent to those of a high-quality review. The number of meta-analyses published increased 10-fold between 2005 and 2014. Conclusion The quantity and quality of meta-analyses in orthopaedic surgery which have been published has increased, reaching a plateau in 2012. Methodological flaws remain to be addressed in future meta-analyses in order to continue increasing the quality of the orthopaedic literature. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2018;100-B:1270–4.


2008 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raman Mundi ◽  
Harman Chaudhry ◽  
Ishu Singh ◽  
Mohit Bhandari

Author(s):  
K. T. Tokuyasu

During the past investigations of immunoferritin localization of intracellular antigens in ultrathin frozen sections, we found that the degree of negative staining required to delineate u1trastructural details was often too dense for the recognition of ferritin particles. The quality of positive staining of ultrathin frozen sections, on the other hand, has generally been far inferior to that attainable in conventional plastic embedded sections, particularly in the definition of membranes. As we discussed before, a main cause of this difficulty seemed to be the vulnerability of frozen sections to the damaging effects of air-water surface tension at the time of drying of the sections.Indeed, we found that the quality of positive staining is greatly improved when positively stained frozen sections are protected against the effects of surface tension by embedding them in thin layers of mechanically stable materials at the time of drying (unpublished).


Author(s):  
L. D. Jackel

Most production electron beam lithography systems can pattern minimum features a few tenths of a micron across. Linewidth in these systems is usually limited by the quality of the exposing beam and by electron scattering in the resist and substrate. By using a smaller spot along with exposure techniques that minimize scattering and its effects, laboratory e-beam lithography systems can now make features hundredths of a micron wide on standard substrate material. This talk will outline sane of these high- resolution e-beam lithography techniques.We first consider parameters of the exposure process that limit resolution in organic resists. For concreteness suppose that we have a “positive” resist in which exposing electrons break bonds in the resist molecules thus increasing the exposed resist's solubility in a developer. Ihe attainable resolution is obviously limited by the overall width of the exposing beam, but the spatial distribution of the beam intensity, the beam “profile” , also contributes to the resolution. Depending on the local electron dose, more or less resist bonds are broken resulting in slower or faster dissolution in the developer.


Author(s):  
G. Lehmpfuhl

Introduction In electron microscopic investigations of crystalline specimens the direct observation of the electron diffraction pattern gives additional information about the specimen. The quality of this information depends on the quality of the crystals or the crystal area contributing to the diffraction pattern. By selected area diffraction in a conventional electron microscope, specimen areas as small as 1 µ in diameter can be investigated. It is well known that crystal areas of that size which must be thin enough (in the order of 1000 Å) for electron microscopic investigations are normally somewhat distorted by bending, or they are not homogeneous. Furthermore, the crystal surface is not well defined over such a large area. These are facts which cause reduction of information in the diffraction pattern. The intensity of a diffraction spot, for example, depends on the crystal thickness. If the thickness is not uniform over the investigated area, one observes an averaged intensity, so that the intensity distribution in the diffraction pattern cannot be used for an analysis unless additional information is available.


Author(s):  
K. Shibatomi ◽  
T. Yamanoto ◽  
H. Koike

In the observation of a thick specimen by means of a transmission electron microscope, the intensity of electrons passing through the objective lens aperture is greatly reduced. So that the image is almost invisible. In addition to this fact, it have been reported that a chromatic aberration causes the deterioration of the image contrast rather than that of the resolution. The scanning electron microscope is, however, capable of electrically amplifying the signal of the decreasing intensity, and also free from a chromatic aberration so that the deterioration of the image contrast due to the aberration can be prevented. The electrical improvement of the image quality can be carried out by using the fascionating features of the SEM, that is, the amplification of a weak in-put signal forming the image and the descriminating action of the heigh level signal of the background. This paper reports some of the experimental results about the thickness dependence of the observability and quality of the image in the case of the transmission SEM.


Author(s):  
John H. Luft

With information processing devices such as radio telescopes, microscopes or hi-fi systems, the quality of the output often is limited by distortion or noise introduced at the input stage of the device. This analogy can be extended usefully to specimen preparation for the electron microscope; fixation, which initiates the processing sequence, is the single most important step and, unfortunately, is the least well understood. Although there is an abundance of fixation mixtures recommended in the light microscopy literature, osmium tetroxide and glutaraldehyde are favored for electron microscopy. These fixatives react vigorously with proteins at the molecular level. There is clear evidence for the cross-linking of proteins both by osmium tetroxide and glutaraldehyde and cross-linking may be a necessary if not sufficient condition to define fixatives as a class.


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