In March 2009 issue of
World Journal of Gastroenterology, Lu et al[
1] published their interesting findings regarding the accuracy of esophageal capsule endoscopy (ECE) in detecting esophageal varices and its utility in screening and surveillance of esophageal varices. We would like to add that it is vital to comment on the presence or absence of any bias when reporting a meta-analysis as this will allow the readers to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the recommendation made. A recently published statement on preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA)[
2], an evolution of the original quality of reporting of meta-analyses (QUOROM) guidelines, suggests that publication bias should be assessed while reporting meta-analyses and systematic reviews. Since publication bias was not reported in the above meta-analysis, we analyzed the data for the presence or absence of publication bias.
We assessed the publication bias using funnel plot. Funnel plots were plotted using log odds ratio
vs standard error (Figure ) and log odds ratio
vs precision (Figure ), both showed no evidence of publication bias. We complemented the funnel plots with Eggers test[
3] and rank correlation analysis[
4] and both also showed no evidence of publication bias (
P > 0.05).
We hope that this information about the absence of publication bias in this meta-analysis will add more value to the conclusion reported in the above meta-analysis.