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Polycystic ovarian syndrome and autism spectrum disorder in the offspring: Should the primary outcome have been different?

Molecular Psychiatry volume 26, pages 1438–1439 (2021)Cite this article

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Katsigianni et al. [1] described a systematic review and meta-analysis that examined as its primary outcome the association between polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) in mothers and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the children. They found that PCOS in mothers was associated with an increased odds of ASD in the offspring (Odds Ratio [OR], 1.66; 95% Confidence Interval, 1.51–1.83).

We are concerned that the authors performed their primary analysis on unadjusted ORs and not on adjusted ORs (aORs). The apparent reason was that there were only five studies that reported aORs, and that in these five studies, the covariates adjusted for in the analyses differed, rendering pooling of aORs problematic [2]. One reason why this is so is that the aOR is not a fixed number; its value varies, among other matters, with the number of covariates adjusted for in the analysis [3]. Therefore, to combine aORs that have been obtained after adjustment for different covariates would seem to be akin to combining outcomes that are not the same.

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References

  1. Katsigianni M, Karageorgiou V, Lambrinoudaki I, Siristatidis C Maternal polycystic ovarian syndrome in autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Mol Psychiatry. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-019-0398-0.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry, 605006, India

    Vikas Menon

  2. Department of Psychopharmacology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, 560 029, India

    Chittaranjan Andrade

  3. Department of Biostatistics, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, 560 029, India

    Kandavel Thennarasu

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  1. Vikas Menon
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  2. Chittaranjan Andrade
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  3. Kandavel Thennarasu
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Correspondence to Vikas Menon.

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Menon, V., Andrade, C. & Thennarasu, K. Polycystic ovarian syndrome and autism spectrum disorder in the offspring: Should the primary outcome have been different?. Mol Psychiatry 26, 1438–1439 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-019-0571-5

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