RT Journal
A1 Mills EJ, Ioannidis JA, Thorlund K, Schünemann HJ, Puhan MA, Guyatt GH
T1 HOw to use an article reporting a multiple treatment comparison meta-analysis
JF JAMA
JO JAMA
YR 2012
FD September 26
VO 308
IS 12
SP 1246
OP 1253
DO 10.1001/2012.jama.11228
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/2012.jama.11228
AB Multiple treatment comparison (MTC) meta-analysis uses both direct (head-to-head) randomized clinical trial (RCT) evidence as well as indirect evidence from RCTs to compare the relative effectiveness of all included interventions. The methodological quality of MTCs may be difficult for clinicians to interpret because the number of interventions evaluated may be large and the methodological approaches may be complex. Clinicians and others evaluating an MTC should be aware of the potential biases that can affect the interpretation of these analyses. Readers should consider whether the primary studies are sufficiently homogeneous to combine; whether the different interventions are sufficiently similar in their populations, study designs, and outcomes; and whether the direct evidence is sufficiently similar to the indirect evidence to consider combining. This article uses the existing Users' Guides format to address study validity, interpretation of results, and application to a patient scenario.