Spin in Abstracts of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses of Melanoma Therapies: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

Spin is defined as the misrepresentation of a study’s results, which may lead to misperceptions or misinterpretation of the findings. Spin has previously been found in randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews of acne vulgaris treatments and treatments of various non-dermatological conditions. The purpose of this study was to quantify the presence of spin in systematic reviews and meta-analyses of melanoma therapies and identify any related secondary characteristics of these articles. A total of 200 systematic reviews met the inclusion criteria. We identified spin in 38% of the abstracts. The most common type of spin found was type 3, occurring 40 times; the least common was type 2, which was not present in any included abstracts. We found that abstracts pertaining to pharmacologic interventions were 3.84 times more likely to contain spin than the reference group. We found no significant correlation between funding source, other study characteristics, and the presence of spin. We have found that spin is fairly common in systematic reviews of melanoma treatments. Here we offer recommendations with rationale to reduce spin and improve the overall reporting in systematic review abstracts.