PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Alexandra Mihailovic
AU  - Chaim M. Bell
AU  - David R. Urbach
TI  - Users’ guide to the surgical literature
DP  - 2005 Apr 01
TA  - Canadian Journal of Surgery
PG  - 148--151
VI  - 48
IP  - 2
4099  - http://canjsurg.ca/content/48/2/148.short
4100  - http://canjsurg.ca/content/48/2/148.full
SO  - CAN J SURG2005 Apr 01; 48
AB  - Introduction: Some articles in surgical journals identify themselves as case–control studies, but their methods differ substantially from conventional epidemiologic case–control study (ECC) designs. Most of these studies appear instead to be retrospective cohort studies or comparisons of case series.Methods: We identified all self-identified “case–control” studies published between 1995 and 2000 in 6 surgical journals, to determine the proportion that were true ECCs and to identify study characteristics associated with being true ECCs.Results: Only 19 out of 55 articles (35%) described true ECCs. More likely to be ECCs were those articles that reported “odds ratios” (ORs) (the OR for being an ECC if a study reported “ORs” compared with those reporting no “ORs” 15.3; 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.8–82.6) and whose methods included logistic regression analysis (OR 3.6, CI 1.0–12.9). Studies that focused on the evaluation of a surgical procedure were less likely to be ECCs (OR 0.2, CI 0.1–0.7) than other types of studies, such as those focusing on risk factors for disease.Conclusions: The term “case–control study” is frequently misused in the surgical literature.