Translational phases of evidence in a prognostic biomarker: a systematic review and meta-analysis of natriuretic peptides and the prognosis of stable coronary disease.

Context: Translational phases of study are important in evaluating whether a prognostic biomarker is likely to have impact on clinical practice but systematic evaluations of such evidence are lacking.

Objective: To systematically evaluate the clinical usefulness of the published literature on the association of natriuretic peptides (NP) and prognosis in stable coronary disease.

Data Sources: MEDLINE and EMBASE until the end of July 2009, without restrictions.

Evaluating the quality of research into a single prognostic biomarker: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 83 studies of C-reactive protein in stable coronary artery disease.

Background: Systematic evaluations of the quality of research on a single prognostic biomarker are rare. We sought to evaluate the quality of prognostic research evidence for the association of C-reactive protein (CRP) with fatal and nonfatal events among patients with stable coronary disease.

Methods And Findings: We searched MEDLINE (1966 to 2009) and EMBASE (1980 to 2009) and selected prospective studies of patients with stable coronary disease, reporting a relative risk for the association of CRP with death and nonfatal cardiovascular events.

Comparative review of methods for handling drop-out in longitudinal studies.

Longitudinal data analysis is frequently complicated by drop-out. In this paper we consider several methods for dealing with drop-out afflicted data. Along with a general comparison, particular attention is paid to the consequences of model misspecification.