Transparent and Reproducible Research Practices in the Surgical Literature

Previous studies have established a baseline of minimal reproducibility in the social science and biomedical literature. Clinical research is especially deficient in factors of reproducibility. Surgical journals contain fewer clinical trials than non-surgical ones, suggesting that it should be easier to reproduce the outcomes of surgical literature. In this study, we evaluated a broad range of indicators related to transparency and reproducibility in a random sample of 300 articles published in surgery-related journals between 2014 and 2018. A minority of our sample made available their materials (2/186, 95% C.I. 0–2.2%), protocols (1/196, 0–1.3%), data (19/196, 6.3–13%), or analysis scripts (0/196, 0–1.9%). Only one study was adequately pre-registered. No studies were explicit replications of previous literature. Most studies (162/292 50–61%) declined to provide a funding statement, and few declared conflicts of interest (22/292, 4.8–11%). Most have not been cited by systematic reviews (183/216, 81–89%) or meta-analyses (188/216, 83–91%), and most were behind a paywall (187/292, 58–70%). The transparency of surgical literature could improve with adherence to baseline standards of reproducibility.