The present analysis reports on the robustness of preclinical cardioprotection studies with infarct size as endpoint which were published in Basic Research in Cardiology, Cardiovascular Research, and Circulation Research between January 2013 and December 2023. Only 26 out of 269 papers with technically robust analysis of infarct size by triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining, magnetic resonance imaging or single photon emission tomography applied a prospective power analysis. A retrospective power calculation revealed that only 75% of the reported data sets with statistically significant positive results from all these studies had a statistical power of ≥ 0.9, and an additional 9% had a statistical power ≥ 0.8. The remaining 16% of all significant positive data sets did not even reach the 0.8 threshold. Only 13% of all analyzed data sets were neutral. We conclude that neutral studies are underreported and there is indeed a significant lack of robustness in many of the published preclinical cardioprotection studies which may contribute to the difficulties of translating cardioprotection to patient benefit.

本分析报告了 2013 年 1 月至 2023 年 12 月期间发表在《心脏病学基础研究》、《心血管研究》和《循环研究》上的以梗塞面积为终点的临床前心脏保护研究的稳健性。269 篇论文中，只有 26 篇对梗塞进行了技术上稳健的分析通过氯化三苯基四唑染色、磁共振成像或单光子发射断层扫描应用前瞻性功率分析来确定尺寸。回顾性功效计算显示，所有这些研究中只有 75% 的具有统计显着性阳性结果的报告数据集的统计功效≥ 0.9，另外 9% 的统计功效≥ 0.8。所有显着阳性数据集中剩下的 16% 甚至没有达到 0.8 的阈值。所有分析数据集中只有 13% 是中立的。我们的结论是，中性研究报告不足，许多已发表的临床前心脏保护研究确实严重缺乏稳健性，这可能导致将心脏保护转化为患者利益的困难。