PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews

1

Review title

Give the working title of the review. This must be in English. Ideally it should state succinctly the interventions or exposures being reviewed and the associated health or social problem being addressed in the review.

Prognostic and predictive value of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio in ovarian cancer

2

Original language title

For reviews in languages other than English, this field should be used to enter the title in the language of the review. This will be displayed together with the English language title.

3

Anticipated or actual start date

Give the date when the systematic review commenced, or is expected to commence.

27/11/2016

4

Anticipated completion date

Give the date by which the review is expected to be completed.

31/01/2017

5

Stage of review at time of this submission

Indicate the stage of progress of the review by ticking the relevant boxes. Reviews that have progressed beyond the point of completing data extraction at the time of initial registration are not eligible for inclusion in PROSPERO. This field should be updated when any amendments are made to a published record.

Provide any other relevant information about the stage of the review here.

National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 81401187).

6

Named contact

The named contact acts as the guarantor for the accuracy of the information presented in the register record.

Quan Zhou

7

Named contact email

Enter the electronic mail address of the named contact.

zhouquan8519@163.com

8

Named contact address

Enter the full postal address for the named contact.

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the First People’s Hospital of Yichang, 2, Jie-fang Road, Yi Chang, 443000, Hubei, China.

9

Named contact phone number

Enter the telephone number for the named contact, including international dialing code.

+86 15090921512

10

Organisational affiliation of the review

Full title of the organisational affiliations for this review, and website address if available. This field may be completed as 'None' if the review is not affiliated to any organisation.

The People’s Hospital of Three Gorges University/The First People’s Hospital of Yichang

Website address:

http://www.ycyy.com.cn

11

Review team members and their organisational affiliations

Give the title, first name and last name of all members of the team working directly on the review. Give the organisational affiliations of each member of the review team.

12

Funding sources/sponsors

Give details of the individuals, organizations, groups or other legal entities who take responsibility for initiating, managing, sponsoring and/or financing the review. Any unique identification numbers assigned to the review by the individuals or bodies listed should be included.

National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 81401187)

13

Conflicts of interest

List any conditions that could lead to actual or perceived undue influence on judgements concerning the main topic investigated in the review.

Are there any actual or potential conflicts of interest?

None known

14

Collaborators

Give the name, affiliation and role of any individuals or organisations who are working on the review but who are not listed as review team members.

15

Review question(s)

State the question(s) to be addressed / review objectives. Please complete a separate box for each question.

We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the clinical values, including clinicopathology, prognosis, and diagnosis, of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio in ovarian cancer.

16

Searches

Give details of the sources to be searched, and any restrictions (e.g. language or publication period). The full search strategy is not required, but may be supplied as a link or attachment.

We will search the following electronic bibliographic databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library (the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), and the Cochrane Methodology Register) and Web of Science (Science and Social Science Citation Index). The search strategy will include only terms relating to or describing the intervention, and the terms will be combined with the Cochrane MEDLINE filter for controlled trials of interventions. The search strategy for MEDLINE will be made available in the published protocol. The search terms will be adapted for use with other bibliographic databases in combination with database-specific filters for controlled trials, where these are available. There will be no language restrictions. Studies published between January 1990 and the date the searches are run will be sought. The searches will be re-run just before the final analyses and further studies retrieved for inclusion.

17

URL to search strategy

If you have one, give the link to your search strategy here. Alternatively you can e-mail this to PROSPERO and we will store and link to it.

I give permission for this file to be made publicly available

Yes

18

Condition or domain being studied

Give a short description of the disease, condition or healthcare domain being studied. This could include health and wellbeing outcomes.

Ovarian cancer; ovarian neoplasms.

19

Participants/population

Give summary criteria for the participants or populations being studied by the review. The preferred format includes details of both inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Adolescents (under 18 years of age) and elderly people (over 70). OC diagnosed according to histopathological examination.

20

Intervention(s), exposure(s)

Give full and clear descriptions of the nature of the interventions or the exposures to be reviewed

To investigate the association of pre-treatment NLR and clinicopathology, overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS) and diagnostic value.

21

Comparator(s)/control

Where relevant, give details of the alternatives against which the main subject/topic of the review will be compared (e.g. another intervention or a non-exposed control group).

To investigate the association of pre-treatment NLR and clinicopathology, overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS) and diagnostic value.

22

Types of study to be included

Give details of the study designs to be included in the review. If there are no restrictions on the types of study design eligible for inclusion, this should be stated.

To investigate the association of pre-treatment NLR and clinicopathology, overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS) and diagnostic value.

23

Context

Give summary details of the setting and other relevant characteristics which help define the inclusion or exclusion criteria.

24

Primary outcome(s)

Give the most important outcomes.

Overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS).

Give information on timing and effect measures, as appropriate.

25

Secondary outcomes

List any additional outcomes that will be addressed. If there are no secondary outcomes enter None.

Clinicopathology and diagnostic value.

Give information on timing and effect measures, as appropriate.

26

Data extraction (selection and coding)

Give the procedure for selecting studies for the review and extracting data, including the number of researchers involved and how discrepancies will be resolved. List the data to be extracted.

27

Risk of bias (quality) assessment

State whether and how risk of bias will be assessed, how the quality of individual studies will be assessed, and whether and how this will influence the planned synthesis.

The Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (NOS) will be used to assess the quality of each study by two independent investigators. The NOS consists of three parts: selection (four points), comparability (two points), and outcome assessments (three points). NOS scores >=7 are considered to indicate high-quality studies.

28

Strategy for data synthesis

Give the planned general approach to be used, for example whether the data to be used will be aggregate or at the level of individual participants, and whether a quantitative or narrative (descriptive) synthesis is planned. Where appropriate a brief outline of analytic approach should be given.

All the survival results will be estimated as hazard ratios (HR) for each study. If possible, the HR and the 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) will be obtained directly from each study. If the data has not been directly reported, a mathematical estimation will be conducted by calculating the necessary data according to the methods published by Palmer et al., and the Cochran’s Q test and Higgins' I-squared statistic will be used to evaluate the heterogeneity of the pooled results. A p < 0.10 in the Q-test will suggest significant heterogeneity among the studies and the random-effects model (DerSimonian-Laird method) will be applied in this case to calculate pooled HRs. Otherwise, the fixed-effects model (Mantel-Haenszel method) will be used.

29

Analysis of subgroups or subsets

Give any planned exploration of subgroups or subsets within the review. ‘None planned’ is a valid response if no subgroup analyses are planned.

To explore the potential sources of heterogeneity among studies, meta-regression will be conducted utilizing variables such as year of publication, ethnicity, cancer type, analysis method and cutoff value.

30

Type and method of review

Select the type of review and the review method from the drop down list.

Prevention, Prognostic, Systematic review

31

Language

Select the language(s) in which the review is being written and will be made available, from the drop down list. Use the control key to select more than one language.

English, Chinese-HK

Will a summary/abstract be made available in English?

Yes

32

Country

Select the country in which the review is being carried out from the drop down list. For multi-national collaborations select all the countries involved. Use the control key to select more than one country.

China

33

Other registration details

Give the name of any organisation where the systematic review title or protocol is registered together with any unique identification number assigned. If extracted data will be stored and made available through a repository such as the Systematic Review Data Repository (SRDR), details and a link should be included here.

34

Reference and/or URL for published protocol

Give the citation for the published protocol, if there is one.

Give the link to the published protocol, if there is one. This may be to an external site or to a protocol deposited with CRD in pdf format.

I give permission for this file to be made publicly available

Yes

35

Dissemination plans

Give brief details of plans for communicating essential messages from the review to the appropriate audiences.

Do you intend to publish the review on completion?

Yes

36

Keywords

Give words or phrases that best describe the review. (One word per box, create a new box for each term)

37

Details of any existing review of the same topic by the same authors

Give details of earlier versions of the systematic review if an update of an existing review is being registered, including full bibliographic reference if possible.

38

Current review status

Review status should be updated when the review is completed and when it is published.

Ongoing

39

Any additional information

Provide any further information the review team consider relevant to the registration of the review.

40

Details of final report/publication(s)

This field should be left empty until details of the completed review are available.
Give the full citation for the final report or publication of the systematic review.

Give the URL where available.