386,561 papers found

Applications of meta-analysis have begun to appear with some regularity in the dental research literature. Recently, a meta-analysis played a high-profile role in the ongoing academic debate concerning the relative anticaries efficacy of dentifrices containing fluoride as sodium fluoride and as sodium monofluorophospha…

OBJECTIVE: To compare results from meta-analyses for mean differences in minimal important difference (MID) units (MD), when MID is treated as a random variable vs. a constant. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: Meta-analyses of published data. We calculated the variance of MDas a random variable using the delta method and as…

BACKGROUND: Rapid access to evidence is crucial in times of an evolving clinical crisis. To that end, we propose a novel approach to answer clinical queries, termed rapid meta-analysis (RMA). Unlike traditional meta-analysis, RMA balances a quick time to production with reasonable data quality assurances, leveraging ar…

We develop a nonparametric Bayesian prior for a family of random probability measures by extending the Polya tree ($\mbox{PT}$) prior to a joint prior for a set of probability measures $G_1,\dots ,G_n$, suitable for meta-analysis with event-time outcomes. In the application to meta-analysis, $G_i$ is the event-time dis…

BackgroundCardioplegic arrest can be induced by various methods, fueling a long-standing controversy about their comparative merit. We aim to compare cardioplegic methods in coronary artery disease.MethodsPubMed, Embase, and Cochrane databases were interrogated for randomized trials that compared various cardioplegic m…

The route of administration significantly influences the pharmacokinetics of progestogens. For luteal phase support (LPS) after fresh embryo transfer in IVF, ESHRE recommends vaginal, intramuscular, subcutaneous progesterone or oral dydrogesterone. This network meta-analysis evaluated the relative effectiveness of prog…

Individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis projects obtain, harmonise, and synthesise original data from multiple studies. Many IPD meta-analyses of randomised trials are initiated to identify treatment effect modifiers at the individual level, thus requiring statistical modelling of interactions between treatment…

Zinc acexamate (ZAC) is a new drug for the treatment of peptic ulcer. The present study was performed in order to evaluate the clinical efficacy of ZAC in peptic ulcer, using a meta-analysis of all randomized clinical trials performed with this drug. Eighteen studies were reviewed, but only 13 were considered in the fi…

BACKGROUND: Dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system (characterized by excessive sympathetic activation and reduced parasympathetic activity) is regarded as 1 of the primary mechanisms of heart failure. Theoretically, nerve stimulation or modulation targeting this autonomic imbalance could improve outcomes in heart…

PURPOSE: In this study we gathered and analyzed the available evidence regarding 17 different imaging modalities and performed network meta-analysis to find the most effective modality for the differentiation between brain tumor recurrence and post-treatment radiation effects. METHODS: We conducted a comprehensive sys…

Data from 75 published trials were analyzed using meta-analysis techniques (pooling of data from many trials into one analysis) to determine nutritional risk factors for milk fever. Trials included in the analysis represented 1165 cows, 214 of which developed milk fever. Prepartum dietary concentrations of S and dietar…

A meta-analysis of all controlled clinical trials of beta-adrenoceptor blocking drugs, principally propranolol, in the prevention of primary or secondary variceal bleeding has shown that beta-blockade significantly reduced the occurrence of variceal bleeding, deaths from variceal bleeding, and overall mortality. There…

Several studies have evaluated the effects of resveratrol supplementation on lipid profile parameters in humans and have demonstrated varying results. We systematically evaluated the literature and performed an umbrella meta-analysis of the effects of resveratrol supplementation on lipid profile. A comprehensive litera…

As studies of measured gene-environment interactions (G x E) in developmental psychopathology gain momentum, methods for systematically and quantitatively summarizing effects across multiple studies are urgently needed. Meta-analyses of G x E findings are critical for evaluating the overall statistical and theoretical…

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of robot-assisted gait training (RAGT) in treating lower extremity function in patients with cerebral palsy (CP) and compare the efficacy differences between different robotic systems. METHODS: PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, CNKI, VIP, CBM, a…

The result of a meta-analysis is conventionally pictured in the forest plot as a diamond, whose length is the 95% confidence interval (CI) for the summary measure of interest. The Diamond Ratio (DR) is the ratio of the length of the diamond given by a random effects meta-analysis to that given by a fixed effect meta-an…

Many pharmacologic regimens have been recommended as supplemental treatment strategies for cocaine abuse. Using the technique of meta-analysis, we compared and combined the data from six studies to examine the efficacy of desipramine as an adjunctive treatment approach for cocaine addiction. These studies were randomiz…