Irreproducibility of preclinical findings could be a significant barrier to the “bench-to-bedside” development of oncolytic viruses (OVs). A contributing factor is the incomplete and non-transparent reporting of study methodology and design. Using the NIH Principles and Guidelines for Reporting Preclinical Research, a core set of seven recommendations, we evaluated the completeness of reporting of preclinical OV studies. We also developed an evidence map identifying the current trends in OV research. A systematic search of MEDLINE and Embase identified all relevant articles published over an 18 month period. We screened 1,554 articles, and 236 met our a priori-defined inclusion criteria. Adenovirus (43%) was the most commonly used viral platform. Frequently investigated cancers included colorectal (14%), skin (12%), and breast (11%). Xenograft implantation (61%) in mice (96%) was the most common animal model. The use of preclinical reporting guidelines was listed in 0.4% of articles. Biological and technical replicates were completely reported in 1% of studies, statistics in 49%, randomization in 1%, blinding in 2%, sample size estimation in 0%, and inclusion/exclusion criteria in 0%. Overall, completeness of reporting in the preclinical OV therapy literature is poor. This may hinder efforts to interpret, replicate, and ultimately translate promising preclinical OV findings.

临床前发现的不可重复性可能是溶瘤病毒（OVs）“从台到床”发展的重要障碍。一个影响因素是研究方法和设计的报告不完整和不透明。使用NIH报告临床前研究的原则和指南（七项建议的核心集），我们评估了临床前OV研究报告的完整性。我们还开发了一个证据图，确定了OV研究的当前趋势。系统搜索MEDLINE和Embase可以确定18个月内发表的所有相关文章。我们筛选了1,554篇文章，其中236篇符合我们的先验知识定义的纳入标准。腺病毒（43％）是最常用的病毒平台。经常调查的癌症包括结直肠癌（14％），皮肤癌（12％）和乳腺癌（11％）。最常见的动物模型是小鼠（96％）中的异种移植（61％）。0.4％的文章列出了临床前报告指南的使用。在1％的研究中完全报告了生物学和技术重复，在统计中报告了49％，在随机试验中报告了1％，在盲法中报告了2％，在样本量估计中在0％，并且包含/排除标准在0％。总体而言，临床前OV治疗文献报道的完整性很差。这可能会阻碍解释，复制和最终翻译有希望的临床前OV发现的努力。