British Journal of Dermatology | 2019
Significant limitations of a systematic review and meta‐analysis of interventions to promote skin self‐examination
Abstract
Ersser and colleagues 1 review of interventions to promote skin self-examination is timely and relevant, insofar as the topic is of considerable current clinical and research interest. However, it is subject to two significant limitations. First, with the exception of MEDLINE (which was searched up until April 2018), there was a time lag of 43·4 months between the conclusion of the literature search of the remaining five databases (in April 2015) and the manuscript s acceptance at the journal (on December 12, 2018). The median time lag in a review of 300 systematic reviews was 5·1 months (range 0 to 43·8 months).2 Thus, the time lag for Ersser and colleagues paper is at the upper extremes of what could be expected and raises concerns whether their results and conclusions reflect the current state of the literature. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.