The effect of the 2003 Consensus Reporting Standards on publications describing patients with vestibular schwannoma treated with stereotactic radiosurgery

In an effort to promote a uniform standard for reporting clinical results, the Consensus Meeting on Systems for Reporting Results in Acoustic Neuroma was convened in 2001, and the results of this meeting have been summarized by Kanzaki et al. in 2003. We describe publication compliance to these reporting parameters in a systematic analysis of publications obtained through a comprehensive literature search on patients with vestibular schwannoma (VS) treated with stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS). Each publication was scored based on whether it had properly reported each of eight elements described in the Consensus Meeting Reporting Guidelines (Guidelines). We compared the proportions of studies and cases that included each of the eight items prior to, and after, publication of the Guidelines. A significantly greater proportion of studies appropriately reported the size of the tumor after the release of the Guidelines (98% compared to 85%, p = 0.04). A significantly greater number of cases were reported properly adhering to the Guidelines in seven of the eight elements, with the exception of the cystic nature of the tumor. Report of post-treatment neurologic symptoms and complications saw the greatest degree of increase from before to after the publication of the Guidelines (47% to 68% of cases published, p < 0.001). Our findings suggest a potentially significant impact of the Guidelines on the quality of the information included in studies.