Reliability of urological telesurgery compared with local surgery: multicentre randomised controlled trial.
Wang Y, Xia D, Xu W, Rexiati M, Zhao W, Huang Q, Shi T, Wang B, Wang S, Tai S, Qiao B, Zhang Y, Ye S, Zhang X, Mao J, Zhu Y, Wang H, Ma S, Yang C, Fu W, Song T, Ai Q, Song Y, Xu L, Yang G, Gao Y, Niu S, Guo J, Liu G, Xiang X, Liang C, Ma X, Li H, Zhang X, TeleS Research Group
Paper source
Reliability of urological telesurgery compared with local surgery: multicentre randomised controlled trial.
This rigor review was examined and confirmed by Adcurare Editorial · July 7, 2026
How this rating was calculated▸
- ReportingData & code availability partially met−0.25★
- Data/code availability incomplete
This Adcurare Rigor Review uses AI Rigor Reviewers trained on a curated corpus of high-fidelity and retracted papers, with expert supervision and curation. It can still make mistakes; verify each finding against the source before relying on it.
This is a well-conducted and well-reported non-inferiority RCT comparing telesurgery to local robotic surgery. The scientific premise, study design, biological variables, key resources, statistical analysis, and reporting transparency are all robust. Two minor reporting gaps—a missing regulatory compliance statement and code-only-in-supplementary-materials—lower the overall score but do not threaten the paper's validity.
Evaluated as an interventional human RCT. All eight dimensions were applicable. Reviewers 2 and 3 flagged the code-sharing and ethics-statement gaps, which the synthesis adopted. The statistics verification component re-computed 3 tests (all consistent); coverage is limited to tests with a test statistic + df or effect estimate + CI. No citation integrity issues (0 retracted, 0 not found). Two data/code links were checked and both were live.
9 major claims checked against the paper's own evidence: all adequately supported.
Recomputed 3 tests: 3 consistent, 0 inconsistent, 3 via agent-written checks.
7 copyedit issues flagged: mostly consistency, typo, grammar.
Checked 34 references: 34 verified.
2 data/code links checked; 2 live.
Registered (1 ID: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry). No reporting guideline cited.
Ready after minor edits. The two 'warn' dimensions (ethical_approvals: add Declaration of Helsinki statement; data_code_availability: deposit code in a public repository) and the copyedit issues are straightforward fixes. Address these before submission to avoid desk rejection or reviewer criticism.
- 1.HIGHethicsAdd an explicit statement of regulatory compliance in the Ethics section, e.g., 'This study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.'Required by most journals; its absence was flagged by one reviewer and constitutes a fixable gap.
- 2.HIGHdata codeDeposit the analysis code in a version-controlled public repository (e.g., GitHub, Zenodo) with a permanent DOI and update the Data Availability Statement accordingly.Code in supplementary materials lacks versioning, discoverability, and a permanent identifier, a common reviewer expectation for open science.
- 3.MEDIUMreportingAdd a reference to the CONSORT reporting guideline in the Methods section.CONSORT is the standard for RCTs; its absence, though minor, is a gap noted by two reviewers.
- 4.MEDIUMstatisticsAdd a brief statement verifying statistical assumptions for the linear models used in secondary analyses, or clarify that the Bayesian framework is robust to assumption violations.One reviewer noted assumptions_verified as reported_but_inadequate; a brief note addresses this.
- 5.MEDIUMreportingAdd race/ethnicity data to the baseline characteristics table (Table 1) or state why it was not collected.Race/ethnicity is a standard demographic variable; its omission was noted by one reviewer.
- 6.MEDIUMcopyeditCapitalize 'Bayesian' consistently throughout the manuscript (Methods, Results, Tables).Inconsistent capitalization (lowercase 'bayesian' in places) is a minor but distracting inconsistency flagged by the copyedit pass.
- 7.MEDIUMcopyeditUse consistent spelling of 'penalized' vs 'penalised' throughout the manuscript.Flagged by copyedit; choose one spelling (e.g., 'penalised' to match British English used elsewhere) and apply consistently.
- 8.LOWcopyeditIn Table 2, 'Perioperative morbidity' row header, remove the extra space before the comma.Minor typographical inconsistency flagged by copyedit.
- 9.LOWcopyeditIn Results, paragraph 2, change 'were' to 'was' for subject-verb agreement ('The probability ... was').Grammar fix flagged by copyedit.
- 10.LOWcopyeditIn Table 2 complications row, specify the denominator for the local surgery group (e.g., 0/31) for consistency.Denominator is implied but not shown; flagged by copyedit.
- 11.LOWcopyeditIn Abstract Conclusions, rewrite for clarity: '...according to the non-inferiority margin of a 0.1 absolute reduction in success probability.'Minor clarity improvement flagged by copyedit.
Adcurare assesses methodological rigor, not the importance of the findings. See how we evaluate →