Reply to: Improving the Quality of the Reporting of Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses

We appreciate the interest and comments by Behzadifar et al on our meta-analysis.1 They proposed some methodological suggestions to improve quality of the systematic reviews and meta-analyses, mainly by controlling the bias. We of course agree that these measures are helpful to report more accurate results, but they are not necessary for performing such studies. Also there are several meta-analyses which did not consider these elements.2 In addition, Behzadifar et al’s comments seem to be general, and are not specific to our study. For example, CONSORT is related to the randomized controlled trials, not epidemiologic studies. Also, Egger’s and Begg’s tests are not used for meta-analyses conducting on descriptive studies.3,4 However, we will try to consider all these suggestions for future systematic reviews and meta-analyses.