Quantifying and presenting overall evidence in network meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT: Network meta-analysis (NMA) has become an increasingly used tool to compare multiple treatments simultaneously by synthesizing direct and indirect evidence in clinical research. However, many existing studies did not properly report the evidence of treatment comparisons and show the comparison structure to audience. In addition, nearly all treatment networks presented only direct evidence, not overall evidence that can reflect the benefit of performing NMAs. This article classifies treatment networks into three types under different assumptions; they include networks with each treatment comparison's edge width proportional to the corresponding number of studies, sample size, and precision. In addition, three new measures (ie, the effective number of studies, the effective sample size, and

SUBMITTER: Lin L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6235692 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature