Objective To evaluate the reporting quality of single-patient (N-of-1) trials and protocols based on the CONSORT Extension for N-of-1 trials (CENT) statement and the standard protocol items: recommendations for interventional trials (SPIRIT) extension and elaboration for N-of-1 trials (SPENT) checklist to examine the factors that influenced reporting quality. Methods Four electronic databases were searched to identify N-of-1 trials and protocols from 2015 to 2020. Quality was assessed by two reviewers. We calculated the overall scores based on binary responses in which "Yes" was scored as 1 (if the item was fully reported), and "No" was scored as 0 (if the item was not clearly reported or not definitely stated). Results A total of 78 publications (55 N-of-1 trials and 23 protocols) were identified. The mean reporting score (SD) of the N-of-1 trials and protocols were 29.24 (0.89) and 29.61 (1.83), respectively. For the items related to outcomes, sample size, allocation concealment protocol, and informed consent materials, the reporting quality was low. Our results showed that the year of publication (t = -0.793, p = 0.872 for the trials and t = 1.352, p = 0.623 for the protocols) and the impact factor of the journal (t = 1.416, p = 0.619 for the trials and t = 0.359, p = 0.667 for the protocols) were not factors associated with better reporting quality. Conclusion With the publication of the CENT 2015 statement and the SPENT 2019 checklist, authors should adhere to the relevant reporting guidelines and improve the reporting quality of N-of-1 trials and protocols.

Minimally invasive surgery includes traditional laparoscopic and robot-assisted surgery. Although many studies related to robotic surgery and laparoscopic surgery have been published, when doing our search, scientometric studies that focus on related robotic surgery versus laparoscopic surgery were limited. In this study, we aimed to analyze and review the research hots and research status of robotic surgery versus laparoscopic surgery. We searched publications that involved robotic surgery versus laparoscopic surgery in the Web of Science database from 1980 to May 23, 2020. The top 100 publications were published in 2012 with the number of 17 and citations ranged from 618 to 64. Published across 34 different journals, namely European urology (n = 17) and others, the greatest contribution among 36 institutes was made by the Cleveland Clinic (n = 11). Of the top 100 publications, a total of 429 unique words were identified and the most frequently occurring keyword was laparoscopy (n = 33). The co-occurrence of keywords in the top 100 publications indicated that the study of diseases mainly focused on prostatectomy, complications, prostate cancer, retropubic prostatectomy, nephron-sparing surgery, lymph-node dissection, total mesenteric excision, sexual function, rectal cancer, and assisted distal gastrectomy. In recent years, comparative research on robot and laparoscopic surgery has decreased and most studies focus on cancer. (C) 2020 Asian Surgical Association and Taiwan Robotic Surgery Association. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V.