On 2017 Feb 01, Hilda Bastian commented:

The authors raise interesting and important points about the quandaries and complexities involved in updating a systematic review and reporting the update. However, their review of the field and conclusion that of the 250 journals they looked at, only BMC Systematic Reviews has guidance on the process of updating is deeply flawed.

One of the 185 journals in the original sample they included (Page MJ, 2016) is the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Section 3.4 of the Cochrane Handbook is devoted to updating, and updating is addressed within several other sections as well. The authors here refer to discussion of updating in Cochrane's MECIR standards. Even though this does not completely cover Cochrane's guidance to authors, it contradicts the authors' conclusion that BMC Systematic Reviews is the only journal with guidance on updating.

The authors cite a recent useful analysis of guidance on updating systematic reviews (Garner P, 2016). Readers who are interested in this topic could also consider the broader systematic review community and methodological guidance. Garritty C, 2010 found 35 organizations that have policy documents at least on updating, and many of these have extensive methodological guidance, for example AHRQ (Tsertsvadze A, 2008). Recently, guidelines for updating clinical guidelines have also been published (Vernooij RW, 2017).

The authors reference some studies that address updating strategies, however this literature is quite extensive. You can use this filter in PubMed along with other search terms for studies and guidance: sysrev_methods [sb] (example). (An explanation of this filter is on the PubMed Health blog.)

Disclosure: I work on PubMed Health, the PubMed resource on systematic reviews and information based on them.

On 2017 Feb 01, Hilda Bastian commented:

The authors raise interesting and important points about the quandaries and complexities involved in updating a systematic review and reporting the update. However, their review of the field and conclusion that of the 250 journals they looked at, only BMC Systematic Reviews has guidance on the process of updating is deeply flawed.

One of the 185 journals in the original sample they included (Page MJ, 2016) is the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Section 3.4 of the Cochrane Handbook is devoted to updating, and updating is addressed within several other sections as well. The authors here refer to discussion of updating in Cochrane's MECIR standards. Even though this does not completely cover Cochrane's guidance to authors, it contradicts the authors' conclusion that BMC Systematic Reviews is the only journal with guidance on updating.

The authors cite a recent useful analysis of guidance on updating systematic reviews (Garner P, 2016). Readers who are interested in this topic could also consider the broader systematic review community and methodological guidance. Garritty C, 2010 found 35 organizations that have policy documents at least on updating, and many of these have extensive methodological guidance, for example AHRQ (Tsertsvadze A, 2008). Recently, guidelines for updating clinical guidelines have also been published (Vernooij RW, 2017).

The authors reference some studies that address updating strategies, however this literature is quite extensive. You can use this filter in PubMed along with other search terms for studies and guidance: sysrev_methods [sb] (example). (An explanation of this filter is on the PubMed Health blog.)

Disclosure: I work on PubMed Health, the PubMed resource on systematic reviews and information based on them.