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》上的以梗死面积为终点的临床前心脏保护研究的稳健性。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对梗死面积进行技术稳健分析的 269 篇论文中，只有 26 篇应用了前瞻性功率分析。回顾性功效计算显示，在所有这些研究中具有统计学意义的积极结果的报告数据集中，只有 75% 的统计功效为 ≥ 0.9，另有 9% 的统计功效≥ 0.8。其余 16% 的显著阳性数据集甚至没有达到 0.8 的阈值。在所有分析的数据集中，只有 13% 是中性的。我们得出的结论是，中性研究被低估了，许多已发表的临床前心脏保护研究确实严重缺乏稳健性，这可能导致难以将心脏保护转化为患者受益。