HuGENet Systematic Review Methodology Workshop - Cambridge, November 2004

Hosted jointly by the Cambridge Genetics Knowledge Park (CGKP) and the Human Genome Epidemiology Network (HuGENet™) Executive Committee, 2-3 November 2004 New Hall, Cambridge, UK.

A group of epidemiologists, geneticists, statisticians, clinicians and information specialists, and many active participants in the Human Genome Epidemiology Network (HuGENet) met for a two-day discussion workshop in Cambridge on 2 and 3 November, 2004. The topic for discussion was methodology for systematic reviews of gene-disease association studies and epidemiological studies of gene-gene and gene-environment interaction. A series of speaker-led sessions addressed issues including the scope of a review, identifying studies, assessing susceptibility to bias of individual studies, and aspects of meta-analysis and interpretation. The deliberations of the participants will feed directly into a guidance document for those undertaking systematic reviews in this area. Numerous topics for future research were identified, as was the need for reporting guidelines for primary research studies in this field.

Participants

Betsy Anagnostelis, Adam Butterworth, John Danesh, Carol Dezateux, Doug Easton, John Gallacher, Marta Gwinn, Julian Higgins, John Ioannidis, Muin Khoury, Sarah Lewis, Julian Little, Teri Manolio, David Melzer, Cosetta Minelli, Paul Pharoah, Georgia Salanti, Simon Sanderson, Liam Smeeth, Lesley Smith, Jonathan Sterne, Donna Stroup, Emanuela Taioli, John Thompson, Simon Thompson, Neil Walker, Ron Zimmern.

List of sessions

• Welcome (Julian Higgins)

• The Human Genome Epidemiology Network (Muin Khoury)

• Designs to include, and assessing risk of bias (Julian Little)

• Gene-gene and gene-environment interaction (Muin Khoury)

• When, whether and how to do a meta-analysis (Julian Higgins)

• Mode of inheritance (Cosetta Minelli)

• Implications of departure from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (Georgia Salanti)

• Issues around haplotypes and multiple polymorphisms in a gene (Doug Easton)

• The role of individual participant data (John Ioannidis)

• Seraching for genetic association studies (Marta Gwinn)

• Lessons from searching for clinical trials (Betsy Anagnostelis)

• Tackling reporting biases (John Ioannidis)

• Observational studies and subgroup analysis (Donna Stroup)

• Biomarkers and causality (John Danesh)

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