QUIN Tool:
The Risk of Bias tool for assessment of in-vitro
studies

Keywords :

Systematic Review, QUIN tool, in-vitro studies, risk of bias.

Citation: Shah N. QUIN Tool: The Risk of Bias tool for assessment of in-vitro studies. J Prosthodont Dent Mater 2022;3(1):1-2

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In the last decade, the Systematic Reviews (SR) have changed the ways of understanding, implementing and redefining different treatment modalities, choice of materials and techniques in Prosthodontics.

Understanding the types of research done on a particular topic and draw out a solid evidence in favor of some medicines, techniques, materials or treatment options in a very systematic way as well as using objective method of meta-analysis rather than assumptions by a few authors has helped health sciences in improving quality in both clinical practices as well as research.

In particular, Prosthodontics is a field which is related closer to the material science and their properties. We see a lot many studies which analyses the behavior of dental materials and their success in prosthodontic treatments.

The systematic reviews usually and traditionally are carried out with Randomized control trials or at least some clinical studies.

Though the pyramid of evidence shows laboratory studies as not a very good evidence, in prosthodontics and restorative dentistry, the in-vitro studies as well as studies done on extracted teeth have significant roles. These studies will have similar response and results in oral environment if it is simulated enough. Therefore, a systematic review including good in-vitro studies will be very helpful in field of Prosthodontics and Dental Material Sciences.

One difficulty we faced while doing such SR, we realized the need for a comprehensive tool to analyze the quality of these in-vitro studies. There are many tools to assess risk of bias of different study designs. But these all were not directly applicable to in-vitro studies. We developed and validated the QUIN tool to assess the risk of bias of in-vitro studies (Table 1).1 This will help both analyzing the quality of in-vitro studies already present in literature as well as improving the quality of new research studies as this will give guidelines to the budding scientists.

References 1. Sheth VH, Shah NP, Jain R, Bhanushali N, Bhatnagar V. Development and validation of risk of bias tool for assessing in vitro studies conducted in dentistry: The QUIN. J Prosthet Dent. 2022 Jun 22:S0022-3913(22)00345-6