Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To examine trends in methodological quality of studies of endstage renal disease risk in lupus nephritis, 1970-2015. METHODS: We assessed quality using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale for observational studies, and the Cochrane Collaboration's risk-of-bias tool for trials. RESULTS: In observational studies, description of enrollment criteria was high but decreased over time. Adequacy of followup was low but improved. Inception cohorts and community-based studies were uncommon. Trials had low risk of bias in blinding and selective outcome reporting but most had unclear risks in sequence generation and allocation concealment. CONCLUSION: Methodological quality was mixed, with limited improvement over time.