382,278 papers found

Multiple neuroimaging meta-analyses have been published concerning gustation, food and taste. A meta-evaluation of these meta-analyses was conducted to qualitatively evaluate the presented evidence. A systematic search was done using multiple databases, in which no restriction was placed on participants and nature of i…

A surrogate endpoint can be used instead of the most relevant clinical endpoint to assess the efficiency of a new treatment. Before being used, a surrogate endpoint must be validated based on appropriate methods. Numerous validation approaches have been proposed with the most popular used in a context of meta-analysis,…

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to assess the agreement and compare the performance of three different instruments in assessing risk of bias (RoB) of comparative cohort studies included in a health psychology meta-analysis. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: Three tools were applied to 28 primary studies included in the…

A common challenge for the development of drugs in rare diseases and special populations, eg, paediatrics, is the small numbers of patients that can be recruited into clinical trials. Extrapolation can be used to support development and licensing in paediatrics through the structured integration of available data in ad…

BACKGROUND: Pairwise and network meta-analyses using fixed effect and random effects models are commonly applied to synthesize evidence from randomized controlled trials. The models differ in their assumptions and the interpretation of the results. The model choice depends on the objective of the analysis and knowledge…

BACKGROUND: To assess how common it is for a published network meta-analysis (NMA) to have other published overlapping NMAs, and to evaluate these overlaps. METHODS: A total of 88 NMAs of randomized controlled trials evaluating the comparative effectiveness of health interventions were randomly selected. For each of t…

INTRODUCTION: Previous studies suggest that many systematic reviews contain meta-analyses that display temporal trends, such as the first study's result being more extreme than later studies' or a drift in the pooled estimate. We assessed the extent and characteristics of temporal trends using all Cochrane intervention…

BACKGROUND: The reliability of meta-analysis (MA) in predicting the findings of subsequent large randomized controlled trials (RCTs) has not been assessed in perioperative medicine and anaesthesia. METHODS: Using Medline and PubMed, large RCTs (n≥1000) published since 2000 in the anaesthesia and perioperative m…

The need for robust evidence to support conservation actions has driven the adoption of systematic approaches to research synthesis in ecology. However, applying systematic review to complex or open questions remains challenging, and this task is becoming more difficult as the quantity of scientific literature increase…

BACKGROUND: Although subgroup analyses in clinical trials may provide evidence for individualised medicine, their conduct and interpretation remain controversial. METHODS: Subgroup effect can be defined as the difference in treatment effect across patient subgroups. Cumulative subgroup analysis refers to a series of r…

OBJECTIVES: To assess the use of quality assessment tools among a cross-section of systematic reviews (SRs) and to further evaluate whether quality was used as a parameter in the decision to include primary studies within subsequent meta-analysis. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: We searched PubMed for SRs (interventional, o…

Systematic review and meta-analysis of literature were conducted examining the effectiveness of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development Investigative Interview Protocol in improving the quality of child forensic interviews. Online databases were searched for journal articles published between the…

OBJECTIVES: Bivariate linear and generalized linear random effects are frequently used to perform a diagnostic meta-analysis. The objective of this article was to apply a finite mixture model of bivariate normal distributions that can be used for the construction of componentwise summary receiver operating characterist…

In most dose-response studies, repeated experiments are conducted to determine the EC50 value for a chemical, requiring averaging EC50 estimates from a series of experiments. Two statistical strategies, the mixed-effect modeling and the meta-analysis approach, can be applied to estimate average behavior of EC50 values…

OBJECTIVES: To show the effects of chance on meta-analyses, and the potential dangers of being prompted to do a meta-analysis by one favourable trial. DESIGN: In total, 100,000 trials were simulated and combined into 10,000 meta-analyses, using data from the control group of a cancer trial. Each participant record was…

OBJECTIVES: Bayesian statistical methods are increasingly popular as a tool for meta-analysis of clinical trial data involving both direct and indirect treatment comparisons. However, appropriate selection of prior distributions for unknown model parameters and checking of consistency assumptions required for modeling…

The amygdala, a small deep brain structure involved in behavioral processing through interactions with other brain regions, has garnered increased attention in recent years in relation to pain processing. As pain is a multidimensional experience that encompasses physical sensation, affect, and cognition, the amygdala i…

To determine the suitability of network meta-analysis (NMA) using antibacterial treatment evidence in complicated urinary tract infection.We conducted a systematic literature review to identify published clinical trial data for complicated urinary tract infection treatments. We performed a feasibility assessment to det…

Studies examining occupational exposures and cancer risk frequently report mixed findings; it is thus imperative for researchers to synthesize study results and identify any potential sources that explain such variabilities in study findings. However, when synthesizing study results using meta-analytic techniques, rese…

Integrating multiple observational studies to make unconfounded causal or descriptive comparisons of group potential outcomes in a large natural population is challenging. Moreover, retrospective cohorts, being convenience samples, are usually unrepresentative of the natural population of interest and have groups with…