392,528 papers found

INTRODUCTION: Accurate evaluation of diagnostic tests is essential to guide clinical decision-making. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) are keys for evidence synthesis; however, traditional approaches, including univariate pooling or simplified summary ROC (SROC) models such as the…

INTRODUCTION: Non-specific chronic low back pain is a leading cause of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) with a lifetime prevalence of 80%-85%. Although many modalities of treating chronic low back pain are available, pharmacotherapy remains a very important treatment modality, according to many recognised guideli…

BACKGROUND: In network meta-analysis (NMA), the magnitude of difference between treatment effects is typically ignored in the calculation of ranking metrics, such as probability best and surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRAs). This leads to treatment rankings which may not reflect clinically meaningfu…

INTRODUCTION: Gastric cancer is a high-risk cancer with surgical treatments often leading to significant postoperative complications and mortality. Prehabilitation, involving exercise, nutrition and psychological support before surgery, aims to boost patients' physical and mental health. While effective in other cancer…

BACKGROUND: The sedative effect of intraoperative sedation in elderly surgery exerts critical influence on the prognosis. Comparison on the safety and efficacy between dexmedetomidine and midazolam in many clinical randomized controlled trials (RCTs) was inconsistent and suspicious. We aim to comprehensively evaluate t…

BACKGROUND: Physical punishment at home and in schools is widespread around the world. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have synthesized evidence, mostly from high-income countries (HICs), showing that physical punishment relates to multiple detrimental individual outcomes. Yet, less work has been done to synthesiz…

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 global pandemic has posed enormous threats to public health around the world. Vaccines are considered the best therapeutic strategy against the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the adverse reactions of vaccines significantly affect the rates of vaccination and may be more serious in patients with…

BACKGROUND: Meta-analysis is often used to make generalisations across all available evidence at the global scale. But how can these global generalisations be used for evidence-based decision making at the local scale, if the global evidence is not perceived to be relevant to local decisions? We show how an interactive…

Continued advancement in the field of physical activity and health promotion relies heavily on the synthesis of rigorous scientific evidence. As such, systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials have led to a better understanding of which intervention strategies are superior (i.e., produce the…

Diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) systematic reviews are conducted to summarize evidence on the accuracy of a diagnostic test including a critical evaluation of the primary studies. Where appropriate, the evidence is meta-analyzed to obtain pooled estimates of effectiveness.In this study, we reviewed and critiqued three D…

BACKGROUND: In genome-wide association studies (GWASs), meta-analysis has been widely used to improve statistical power by combining the results of different studies. Meta-analysis can detect phenotype associated variants that are failed to be detected in single studies. Especially, in biomedical sciences, meta-analysi…

INTRODUCTION: Spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage (sICH) is a severe stroke subtype. The effective therapies for patients with sICH are still unclear, and the role of surgical treatment in sICH management is still controversial. Although some large trials did not show that surgery could benefit patients with sICH, so…

In randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with time-to-event outcomes, the difference in restricted mean survival times (RMSTD) offers an absolute measure of the treatment effect on the time scale. Computation of the RMSTD relies on the choice of a time horizon, $\tau$. In a meta-analysis, varying follow-up durations may…

INTRODUCTION: Although guided forms of internet-based cognitive-behavioural therapy (iCBT) result in a substantial reduction in depression, it seems that the most scalable way to deliver iCBT is without guidance. However, direct evidence on the comparison between guided and self-guided iCBT is scarce. Moreover, it is u…

Increasingly, single-armed evidence is included in health technology assessment submissions when companies are seeking reimbursement for new drugs. While it is recognized that randomized controlled trials provide a higher standard of evidence, these are not available for many new agents that have been granted licenses…

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The systematic review of randomized clinical trials is crucial to assess the safety and effectiveness of intermediate procedures. The objective of this article is to present a tutorial for the planning and execution of systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trial studies.…

AIM: To synthesize and compare outcomes from controlled trials of interventions to improve heart failure self-care among adults. BACKGROUND: Heart failure self-care interventions are recommended for preventing and detecting exacerbations, improving symptom management and preventing hospitalizations. Little is known ab…

BACKGROUND: Stratified medicine seeks to identify patients most likely to respond to treatment. Individual participant data (IPD) network meta-analysis (NMA) models have greater power than individual trials to identify treatment-covariate interactions (TCIs). Treatment-covariate interactions contain "within" and "acros…

INTRODUCTION: Colonoscopy has been regarded as a standard method of detecting and removing gastrointestinal lesions early, while adequate bowel preparation is the prerequisite of determining the diagnostic accuracy and treatment safety of this process. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) based bowel preparation regimens remain t…

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Adaptive trial designs present a methodological challenge when performing network meta-analysis (NMA), as data from such adaptive trial designs differ from conventional parallel design randomized controlled trials (RCTs). We aim to illustrate the importance of considering study design when conducti…