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. 2009 Apr;10(2):275-81.
doi: 10.1093/biostatistics/kxn034. Epub 2008 Oct 14.

Exact and efficient inference procedure for meta-analysis and its application to the analysis of independent 2 x 2 tables with all available data but without artificial continuity correction

Lu Tian  1 , Tianxi Cai, Marc A Pfeffer, Nikita Piankov, Pierre-Yves Cremieux, L J Wei
Affiliations

Exact and efficient inference procedure for meta-analysis and its application to the analysis of independent 2 x 2 tables with all available data but without artificial continuity correction

Lu Tian et al. Biostatistics. 2009 Apr.

Abstract

Recently, meta-analysis has been widely utilized to combine information across comparative clinical studies for evaluating drug efficacy or safety profile. When dealing with rather rare events, a substantial proportion of studies may not have any events of interest. Conventional methods either exclude such studies or add an arbitrary positive value to each cell of the corresponding 2 x 2 tables in the analysis. In this article, we present a simple, effective procedure to make valid inferences about the parameter of interest with all available data without artificial continuity corrections. We then use the procedure to analyze the data from 48 comparative trials involving rosiglitazone with respect to its possible cardiovascular toxicity.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
The 95% CIs of the RD for CVD death (rosiglitazone minus control) with 48 studies (small circles are the observed RDs).
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