{"doi":"10.1016/j.jclinepi.2012.10.014","title":"Most meta-analyses of drug interventions have narrow scopes and many focus on specific agents","abstract":"<h4>Objective</h4>To assess the extent to which meta-analysis publications of drugs and biologics focus on specific named agents or even only a single agent, and identify characteristics associated with such focus.<h4>Study design and setting</h4>We evaluated 499 articles with meta-analyses published in 2010 and estimated how many did not cover all the available comparisons of tested interventions for a given condition (not all-inclusive); focused on specific named agent(s), or focused strictly on comparisons of only one specific active agent vs. placebo/no treatment or different doses/schedules.<h4>Results</h4>Of 499 eligible articles, 403 (80.8%) were not all-inclusive, 214 (42.9%) covered only specific named agent(s), and 74 (14.8%) examined only comparisons with one active agent vs. placebo/no treatment or different doses/schedules. Only 39 articles (7.8%) covered all possible indications for the examined agent(s). After adjusting for type of treatment/field, focus on specific named agent(s) was associated with publication in journal venues (odds ratio [OR]: 1.95; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.17-3.26) vs. Cochrane, industry sponsoring (OR: 3.94; 95% CI: 1.66-10.66), and individual patient data analyses (OR: 6.59; 95% CI: 2.24-19.39). Individual patient data analyses primarily (29/34) focused on specific named agent(s).<h4>Conclusion</h4>The scope of meta-analysis publications frequently is narrow and shaped to serve particular agents.","journal":"Journal of Clinical Epidemiology","year":2013,"id":4322,"datarank":1.3136853916579465,"base_score":3.1354942159291497,"endowment":3.1354942159291497,"self_citation_contribution":0.47032413238937254,"citation_network_contribution":0.8433612592685739,"self_endowment_contribution":0.47032413238937254,"citer_contribution":0.8433612592685739,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":22,"citer_count":15,"citers_with_citation_signal":13,"citers_with_endowment":13,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.3134,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2013-04-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":44679,"name":"Dimitrios Pilalas","orcid":"0000-0003-1362-8027","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":28678,"name":"Anna‐Bettina Haidich","orcid":"0000-0001-5100-8799","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":918,"name":"Despina G. Contopoulos‐Ioannidis","orcid":"0000-0002-1918-8918","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":148,"name":"John P. A. Ioannidis","orcid":"0000-0003-3118-6859","position":6,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":50,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}