Maturana, AndresMoya, FernandoDonn, Steven M.2021-10-262021-10-262020Maturana A, Moya F and Donn SM (2020) Systematic Reviews in Neonatal Respiratory Care: Are Some Conclusions Misleading? Front. Pediatr. 8:7.https://doi.org/10.3389/fped.2020.00007http://hdl.handle.net/11447/4932An increasing amount of information is currently available in neonatal respiratory care. Systematic reviews are an important tool for clinical decision-making. The challenge is to combine studies that address a specific clinical question and have similar characteristics in terms of populations, interventions, comparators, and outcomes, so that their combined results provide a more precise estimate of the effect that can be validly extrapolated into clinical practice. The concept of heterogeneity is reviewed, emphasizing that it should be considered in a wider perspective and not just as a mere statistical test. A case is made of how well-designed studies of the neonatal respiratory literature, when equivocally combined, can provide very precise but potentially biased results. Systematic reviews in this field and others should be rigorously peer-reviewed before publication to avoid misleading readers to potentially biased conclusions.enNeonatal respiratory careMeta-analysisSystematic reviewsClinical decision-makingInfant-newbornArticle