Objectives: The aim of this systematic review was to assess the scientific literature in terms of pre-clinical studies evaluating the influence of material, surface and design on the integration of an implant by hard and soft tissues. The included publications were analysed with regard to the frequency of reporting of criteria being derived from the ARRIVE guidelines. This served to trace elements within animal studies, where the quality of reporting needs to improve.
Material and methods: The literature search was performed in Ovid Medline and included English literature from January 1990 to July 2011. A list of 24 criteria derived from the ARRIVE guidelines for animal research was adjusted to implant studies on osseointegration in pristine bone and was applied to all included study manuscripts. Each criteria was graded by "0" (not reported) or "1" (reported) and the frequency of reporting for each criteria was recorded.
Results: A total of 271 studies were included into this review. Generally the quality of reporting increased with time. Low frequencies of reporting were achieved for criteria like "randomisation of animals", "reasons for the animal model" and "relevance to humans".
Conclusions: The frequency of reporting showed high percentages for most criteria. However, the quality of reporting in pre-clinical studies needs to improve in areas like the reporting of statistical information, study setup and the possible translation of the results to humans.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons A/S.