Quality of Reporting in Preclinical Urethral Tissue Engineering Studies: A Systematic Review to Assess Adherence to the ARRIVE Guidelines

Simple Summary We have conducted a systematic review to investigate the quality of reporting in preclinical experiments exploring tissue engineering approaches for urethral repair. This was performed based on the Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines in a total of 28 articles from 2014 to 2020. Inadequate reporting of the essential points of research experiments was observed that could remarkably affect clarity, reproducibility, and translatability. A complete statement of the ethical review permission and guidelines followed was missing in 54% of the studies. Details to ensure reproducibility of the studies, such as animal housing, husbandry, and anesthetics, were infrequently reported. No paper stated the sample size estimation methodology. The quality of reporting improved marginally over the study period. We encourage the utilization of the ARRIVE checklist items when reporting preclinical studies to help the publication of manuscripts that would allow a precise judgment of their scientific merit. Preclinical research within the area of urethral tissue engineering has not yet been successfully translated into an efficient therapeutic option for patients. This gap could be attributed, in part, to inadequate design and reporting of the studies employing laboratory animals. In this study, a systematic review was conducted to investigate the quality of reporting in preclinical studies utilizing tissue engineering approaches for urethral repair. The scope was on studies performed in rabbits, published between January 2014 and March 2020. Quality assessment of the data was conducted according to the Animal Research: Reporting of in Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines by the scoring of a 38-item checklist in different categories. A total of 28 articles that fulfilled the eligibility criteria were included in the study. The range of ARRIVE score was from 0 to 100, taking into consideration having reported the item in question or not. The mean checklist score was 53%. The items that attained the highest scores included the number of animals utilized, the size of control and experimental groups, and the definition of experimental outcomes. The least frequently reported items included the data regarding the experimental procedure, housing and husbandry, determination and justification of the number of animals, and reporting of adverse events. Surprisingly, full disclosure about ethical guidelines and animal protocol approval was missing in 54% of the studies. No paper stated the sample size estimation. Overall, our study found that a large number of studies display inadequate reporting of fundamental information and that the quality of reporting improved marginally over the study period. We encourage a comprehensive implementation of the ARRIVE guidelines in animal studies exploring tissue engineering for urethral repair, not only to facilitate effective translation of preclinical research findings into clinical therapies, but also to ensure compliance with ethical principles and to minimize unnecessary animal studies.

Automated summary

A systematic review of 28 articles on tissue engineering for urethral repair revealed inadequate reporting of fundamental information, suggesting the need for comprehensive implementation of ARRIVE guidelines to facilitate translation of preclinical findings into clinical therapies.