O-023 The Current State of Neurointerventional Surgery Research Highlights the Need for Collaboration

IntroductionNo studies have sought to provide a quantitative or qualitative critique of the research produced in the field of neurointerventional (NI) surgery. We designed a pilot study to analyze recent publications from the Journal of Neurointerventional Surgery (JNIS) to understand the current state of NI research and collaboration.MethodsWe reviewed all JNIS Online First publications from February 25, 2015 to February 24, 2016. All publications including human or non-human research, systematic reviews, meta-analyzes or literature reviews were included; editorials and commentaries were excluded. For each publication, study design, number of patients, authors, and contributing centers and study subject were recorded. Level of evidence was defined for each study using a novel scale (Table 1).ResultsA total of 206 JNIS research articles met inclusion criteria. The average number of centers and authors per study was 2.1 (standard deviation 1.6, range 1–10) and 6.8 (SD 2.9, range 1–17), respectively. Only 4% of published studies were prospective studies (Table 2). Twenty-eight percent of scientific research published featured patient series of 9 or less. Forty-seven percent of publications involved individuals from a single center, with the vast majority (87%) having collaboration of individuals from 3 centers or less (Table 3). While 256 distinct institutions from all over the world were represented, 66% of centers were represented in only a single publication. The majority of publications were categorized as poor quality (level 4 or 5) evidence (91%; Table 4).Abstract O-023 Table 1Modified level of evidence scale for NI researchLevel of evidenceStudy type1Systematic reviews or meta-analyzes of randomized controlled trials or individual randomized controlled trials2Systematic reviews or meta-analyzes of predominantly prospective studies, or individual prospective studies3Systematic reviews or meta-analyzes of predominantly retrospective studies, or restrospective case-control studies4Retrospective non-case-control studies of 10 or more patients5Case reports, case series of 9 patients or less, national or state retrospective database studies, animal studies, or other non-human studiesAbstract O-023 Table 2Types of studiesStudy typeNumber of studiesPercentRandomized controlled trial10.5Prospective series (10+ pts)73.4Retrospective series (10+ pts)9144.2Case report3517.0Case series (2–9 pts)2311.2Animalstudy94.4Non-humanor imaging study2110.2Systematic reviewo