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PRISMA AI reporting guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses on AI in healthcare

Nature Medicine volume 29, pages 14–15 (2023)Cite this article

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Systematic reviews and meta-analyses play an essential part in guiding clinical practice at the point of care, as well as in the formulation of clinical practice guidelines and health policy1,2. There are three essential components to an impactful systematic review. First, the design of a study should be based upon a robust research question and search strategy. Second, minimization of bias should be enhanced by using quality-assessment tools and study-design-specific eligibility criteria. Third, reporting of results should be conducted transparently through adherence to expert-derived reporting items. Thousands of systematic reviews, including meta-analyses, are produced annually, with an increasing proportion reporting on artificial intelligence (AI) interventions in health care. With this rapid expansion, there is a need for reporting guidelines tailored to AI3,4,5,6,7 that will support high-quality, reproducible, and clinically relevant systematic reviews.

AI is being integrated rapidly into society and in medicine. A literature search of studies referencing AI in health care over the past 20 years returned more than 70,000 published articles. Given that interest in AI is reaching an all-time high, there arise new concerns regarding the quality of these studies, including a lack of: clear explainability of how AI algorithms function; strong evidence of effectiveness in clinical settings; and standardized reporting within primary studies. Efforts have been made to improve understanding of this technology to allow for critical appraisal of AI interventions and to reduce inconsistencies in how studies are structured, as well as reporting of data, methods and results3,5,7. As systematic reviews on AI interventions increase, so does the importance of the transparency and reproducibility of reported data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. USC Institute of Urology and Catherine and Joseph Aresty Department of Urology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Giovanni E. Cacciamani, Timothy N. Chu, Daniel I. Sanford, Andre Abreu, Inderbir S. Gill & Andrew J. Hung

  2. AI Center at USC Urology, USC Institute of Urology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Giovanni E. Cacciamani, Timothy N. Chu, Daniel I. Sanford, Andre Abreu, Inderbir S. Gill & Andrew J. Hung

  3. Department of Radiology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Giovanni E. Cacciamani, Timothy N. Chu, Daniel I. Sanford, Andre Abreu, Vinay Duddalwar & Inderbir S. Gill

  4. Center for Image-Guided and Focal Therapy for Prostate Cancer, Institute of Urology and Catherine and Joseph Aresty Department of Urology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Giovanni E. Cacciamani, Andre Abreu & Inderbir S. Gill

  5. Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Institute of Urology, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Giovanni E. Cacciamani, Andre Abreu, Inderbir S. Gill & Andrew J. Hung

  6. USC Radiomics Laboratory, Keck School of Medicine, Department of Radiology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Vinay Duddalwar

  7. Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Assad Oberai

  8. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Assad Oberai

  9. Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    C.-C. Jay Kuo

  10. University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK

    Xiaoxuan Liu & Alastair K. Denniston

  11. Institute of Inflammation and Ageing, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Xiaoxuan Liu & Alastair K. Denniston

  12. Birmingham Health Partners Centre for Regulatory Science and Innovation, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Xiaoxuan Liu & Alastair K. Denniston

  13. NIHR Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Alastair K. Denniston

  14. Health Data Research, London, UK

    Alastair K. Denniston

  15. Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Baptiste Vasey & Peter McCulloch

  16. Department of Surgery, Geneva University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland

    Baptiste Vasey

  17. Kleijnen Systematic Reviews Ltd, Escrick, York, UK

    Robert F. Wolff

  18. Centre for Medical Imaging, University College London, London, UK

    Sue Mallett

  19. Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    John Mongan

  20. Center for Intelligent Imaging, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    John Mongan

  21. Department of Radiology and Institute for Biomedical Informatics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Charles E. Kahn Jr

  22. Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Viknesh Sounderajah & Ara Darzi

  23. Minneapolis VAMC, Urology Section and University of Minnesota, Department of Urology, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Philipp Dahm

  24. Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Karel G. M. Moons

  25. Scripps Research Translational Institute, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Eric Topol

  26. Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology & Musculoskeletal Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Gary S. Collins

  27. Centre for Journalology, Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada

    David Moher

Authors
  1. Giovanni E. Cacciamani
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  2. Timothy N. Chu
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  3. Daniel I. Sanford
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  4. Andre Abreu
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  5. Vinay Duddalwar
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  6. Assad Oberai
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  7. C.-C. Jay Kuo
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  8. Xiaoxuan Liu
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  9. Alastair K. Denniston
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  10. Baptiste Vasey
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  11. Peter McCulloch
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  12. Robert F. Wolff
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  13. Sue Mallett
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  14. John Mongan
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  15. Charles E. Kahn Jr
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  16. Viknesh Sounderajah
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  17. Ara Darzi
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  18. Philipp Dahm
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  19. Karel G. M. Moons
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  20. Eric Topol
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  21. Gary S. Collins
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  22. David Moher
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  23. Inderbir S. Gill
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  24. Andrew J. Hung
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giovanni E. Cacciamani.

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Competing interests

P.D. serves as coordinating editor of Cochrane Urology. G.S.C. is the director of the UK EQUATOR Centre. D.M. is the director of the Canadian EQUATOR Centre. X.L. is an industry fellow (observer) with Hardian Health. A.J.H. is a consultant for Intuitive. I.S.G. is a consultant for STEBA. J.M. is a consultant for Siemens. C.E.K. receives salary support as editor of Radiology: Artificial Intelligence. V.D. is a consultant for Radmetrix Inc. and Westat Inc., and is an advisory board member to Deeptek Inc. A.K.D. is chair of the Health Security initiative at Flagship Pioneering UK Ltd. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Cacciamani, G.E., Chu, T.N., Sanford, D.I. et al. PRISMA AI reporting guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses on AI in healthcare. Nat Med 29, 14–15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-02139-w

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