An Analysis for Key Indicators of Reproducibility in Radiology

Background Given the central role of radiology in patient care, it is important that radiological research is grounded in reproducible science. It remains unexamined whether there is a lack of reproducibility or transparency in radiologic research. Purpose The purpose of this study was to analyze published radiology literature for the presence or absence of key indicators of reproducibility. Methods This cross-sectional, retrospective study was performed by conducting a search of the National Library of Medicine to identify publications contained within journals in the field of Radiology. Journals that were not written in English or MEDLINE indexed were excluded from the analysis. Studies published from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2018 were used to generate a random list of 300 publications for this meta-analysis. A pilot-tested, Google form was used to evaluate key indicators of reproducibility in the queried publications. Results Our initial search returned 295,543 records, from which 300 were randomly selected for analysis. Of these 300 records, 294 met the inclusion criteria. Among the empirical publications, 5.6% contained a data availability statement (11/195, 95% CI: 3.0-8.3), 0.51% provided clearly documented raw data (1/195), 12.0% provided a materials availability statement (23/191, 8.4-15.7), none provided analysis scripts, 4.1% provided a preregistration statement (8/195, 1.9-6.3), 2.1% provided a protocol statement (4/195, 0.4-3.7), and 3.6% were preregistered (7/195, 1.5-5.7). Conclusion Our findings demonstrate that key indicators of reproducibility are missing in the field of radiology. Thus, the ability to reproduce radiological studies may be problematic and may have potential clinical implications.