Meta-Analysis of Odds Ratios: Current Good Practices.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Many systematic reviews of randomized clinical trials lead to meta-analyses of odds ratios (ORs). The customary methods of estimating an overall OR involve weighted averages of the individual trials' estimates of the logarithm of the OR. That approach, however, has several shortcomings, arising from assumptions and approximations, that render the results unreliable. Although the problems have been documented in the literature for many years, the conventional methods persist in software and applications. A well-developed alternative approach avoids the approximations by working directly with the numbers of subjects and events in the arms of the individual trials.

Objective

We aim to raise awareness of methods that avoid the conventional approximations, can be appli

SUBMITTER: Chang BH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5352535 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature