Systematic reviews of the literature: a better way of addressing basic science controversies

摘要

The number of articles published in the scientific literature has increased exponentially in recent decades. At the time of publication of this editorial, Ulrich 's Global Serials Directory listed 23,530 active English-language, scholarly peer-reviewed journals in the fields of medicine and the biological sciences (ulrichsweb.serialssolutions.com/). A 2015 study reported annual growth in scientific publication between 1980 and 2012 at a rate of -3 (3). Researchers are constantly confronted by the enormity of the scientific literature when designing studies and reviewing changes in the literature; review articles long offered a solution by reducing a topic to a digestible summary. Editors often invite experts in the field to review a body of literature and write an article, which presents a concise and objective summary; authors do their best to present the pros and cons of multiple points of view and propose what needs to be done to resolve these differences. These "traditional reviews" are often published in basic and translational journals. However, there is concern that traditional reviews may lack rigorously defined criteria to identify and select the often vast number of studies published in an area. Thus, two reviews by two different authors may reach different conclusions based on the articles they chose to include in their reviews.