The development and evaluation of an online application to assist in the extraction of data from graphs for use in systematic reviews.

Background: The extraction of data from the reports of primary studies, on which the results of systematic reviews depend, needs to be carried out accurately. To aid reliability, it is recommended that two researchers carry out data extraction independently. The extraction of statistical data from graphs in PDF files is particularly challenging, as the process is usually completely manual, and reviewers need sometimes to revert to holding a ruler against the page to read off values: an inherently time-consuming and error-prone process. Methods: To mitigate some of the above problems we integrated and customised two existing JavaScript libraries to create a new web-based graphical data extraction tool to assist reviewers in extracting data from graphs. This tool aims to facilitate more accurate and timely data extraction through a user interface which can be used to extract data through mouse clicks. We carried out a non-inferiority evaluation to examine its performance in comparison to standard practice. Results: We found that the customised graphical data extraction tool is not inferior to users' prior preferred current approaches. Our study was not designed to show superiority, but suggests that there may be a saving in time of around 6 minutes per graph, accompanied by a substantial increase in accuracy. Conclusions: Our study suggests that the incorporation of this type of tool in online systematic review software would be beneficial in facilitating the production of accurate and timely evidence synthesis to improve decision-making.