{"doi":"10.1016/j.jclinepi.2014.09.004","title":"Application of credibility ceilings probes the robustness of meta-analyses of biomarkers and cancer risk","abstract":"<h4>Objectives</h4>Meta-analyses of biomarkers often present spurious significant results and large effects. We applied sensitivity analyses with the use of credibility ceilings to assess whether and how the results of meta-analyses of biomarkers and cancer risk would change.<h4>Study design and setting</h4>We evaluated 98 meta-analyses, 43 (44%) of which had nominally statistically significant results. We assumed that any single study cannot give more than a maximum certainty 100 - c% (c, credibility ceiling) that the effect estimate [odds ratio (OR)] exceeds 1 (null) or 1.2.<h4>Results</h4>Nominal statistical significance was maintained for 21 (21%) meta-analyses, for c = 10% and OR >1, and these proportions changed to 7%, 3%, and 6% with ceilings of 20%, 30%, and 40%, respectively. For ceilings for OR >1.2, the respective proportions were 37%, 21%, 7%, and 3%. Seven meta-analyses on infectious agents retained statistical significance even with a high ceiling of c = 20% for OR >1.00. Meta-analyses without other hints of bias (large between-study heterogeneity, small-study effects, excess significance) were more likely to retain statistical significance than those that had such hints of bias.<h4>Conclusion</h4>Credibility ceilings may be helpful in meta-analyses of biomarkers to understand the robustness of the results to different levels of uncertainty.","journal":"Journal of Clinical Epidemiology","year":2015,"id":11136,"datarank":0.5244761342199721,"base_score":3.4965075614664802,"endowment":3.4965075614664802,"self_citation_contribution":0.5244761342199721,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.5244761342199721,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":32,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.0403,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2015-02-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":36387,"name":"Konstantinos K. Tsilidis","orcid":"0000-0002-8452-8472","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":2427,"name":"Evangelos Evangelou","orcid":"0000-0002-5488-2999","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":148,"name":"John P. A. Ioannidis","orcid":"0000-0003-3118-6859","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18642,"name":"Stefania I. Papatheodorou","orcid":"0000-0002-9451-9094","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":69,"raw_metadata":null,"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":[]}