Sequential methods for random-effects meta-analysis

Statistics in Medicine

Volumn 30, Issue 9, 2011, Pages 903-921

  Higgins, Julian P T ^a   Whitehead, Anne ^b   Simmonds, Mark ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

^b LANCASTER UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^c QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Cumulative meta analysis; Meta analysis; Prior distributions; Prospective meta analysis; Sequential methods

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; BAYES THEOREM; CONFIDENCE INTERVAL; INTERMETHOD COMPARISON; MATHEMATICAL MODEL; META ANALYSIS (TOPIC); PEPTIC ULCER; PROCESS DEVELOPMENT; SEQUENTIAL ANALYSIS; SIMULATION; STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION; SYSTEMATIC ERROR;

BAYES THEOREM; COMPUTER SIMULATION; DATA INTERPRETATION, STATISTICAL; HEMOSTASIS, ENDOSCOPIC; HUMANS; META-ANALYSIS AS TOPIC; PEPTIC ULCER HEMORRHAGE; PROSPECTIVE STUDIES;

EID: 79953740257     PISSN: 02776715     EISSN: 10970258     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/sim.4088     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. The Cochrane Collaboration. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. The Cochrane Library. Wiley: Chichester, U.K., 2010.
2. Higgins JPT, Green S, Scholten RJPM. Maintaining reviews: updates, amendments and feedback. In Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions, Higgins JPT, Green S (eds). Wiley: Chichester, U.K., 2008; 31-49.
3. Simes RJ. Prospective meta-analysis of cholesterol-lowering studies: the prospective pravastatin pooling project (PPP) and the cholesterol treatment trialists (CTT) collaboration. American Journal of Cardiology 1995; 76:C122-C126. DOI: 10.1016/S0002-9149(99)80482-2.
4. Baigent C, Keech A, Kearney PM, Blackwell L, Buck G, Pollicino C, Kirby A, Sourjina T, Peto R, Collins R, Simes R. Efficacy and safety of cholesterol-lowering treatment: prospective meta-analysis of data from 90056 participants in 14 randomised trials of statins. The Lancet 2005; 366:1267-1278. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(05)67394-1.
5. Writer WD, Stienstra R, Eddleston JM, Gatt SP, Griffin R, Gutsche BB, Joyce TH, Hedlund C, Heeroma K, Selander D. Neonatal outcome and mode of delivery after epidural analgesia for labour with ropivacaine and bupivacaine: a prospective meta-analysis. British Journal of Anaesthesia 1998; 81:713-717.
6. Schunkert H, Gotz A, Braund P, McGinnis R, Tregouet DA, Mangino M, Linsel-Nitschke P, Cambien F, Hengstenberg C, Stark K, Blankenberg S, Tiret L, Ducimetiere P, Keniry A, Ghori MJ, Schreiber S, El Mokhtari NE, Hall AS, Dixon RJ, Goodall AH, Liptau H, Pollard H, Schwarz DF, Hothorn LA, Wichmann HE, Konig IR, Fischer M, Meisinger C, Ouwehand W, Deloukas P, Thompson JR, Erdmann J, Ziegler A, Samani NJ. Repeated replication and a prospective meta-analysis of the association between chromosome 9p21.3 and coronary artery disease. Circulation 2008; 117:1675-1684. DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.730614.
7. Sims AM, Timms AE, Bruges-Armas J, Burgos-Vargas R, Chou CT, Doan T, Dowling A, Fialho RN, Gergely P, Gladman DD, Inman R, Kauppi M, Kaarela K, Laiho K, Maksymowych W, Pointon JJ, Rahman P, Reveille JD, Tuomilehto J, Vargas-Alarcon G, Wordsworth BP, Xu H, Brown MA. Prospective meta-analysis of interleukin 1 gene complex polymorphisms confirms associations with ankylosing spondylitis. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 2008; 67:1305-1309. DOI: 10.1136/ard.2007.081364.
8. Berkey CS, Mosteller F, Lau J, Antman EM. Uncertainty of the time of first significance in random effects cumulative metaanalysis. Controlled Clinical Trials 1996; 17:357-371. DOI: 10.1016/S0197-2456(96)00014-1.
9. Whitehead A. A prospectively planned cumulative meta-analysis applied to a series of concurrent clinical trials. Statistics in Medicine 1997; 16:2901-2913. DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0258(19971230)16:24 <2901::AID-SIM700 >3.0.CO;2-5.
10. Whitehead J. The Design and Analysis of Sequential Clinical Trials (revised 2nd edn). Wiley: Chichester, U.K., 1997.
11. Pogue JM, Yusuf S. Cumulating evidence from randomized trials: utilizing sequential monitoring boundaries for cumulative meta-analysis. Controlled Clinical Trials 1997; 18:580-593. DOI: 10.1016/S0197-2456(97)00051-2.
12. Devereaux PJ, Beattie WS, Choi PT, Badner NH, Guyatt GH, Villar JC, Cina CS, Leslie K, Jacka MJ, Montori VM, Bhandari M, Avezum A, Cavalcanti AB, Giles JW, Schricker T, Yang H, Jakobsen CJ, Yusuf S. How strong is the evidence for the use of perioperative beta blockers in non-cardiac surgery? Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. BMJ 2005; 331:313-321. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.38503.623646.8F.
13. Lan KKG, Hu M, Cappelleri JC. Applying the law of iterated logarithm to cumulative meta-analysis of a continuous endpoint. Statistica Sinica 2003; 13:1135-1145.
14. Hu M, Cappelleri JC, Lan KKG. Applying the law of iterated logarithm to control type I error in cumulative meta-analysis of binary outcomes. Clinical Trials 2007; 4:329-340. DOI: 10.1177/1740774507081219.
15. Brok J, Thorlund K, Gluud C, Wetterslev J. Trial sequential analysis reveals insufficient information size and potentially false positive results in many meta-analyses. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 2008; 61:763-769. DOI: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2007.10.007.
16. Wetterslev J, Thorlund K, Brok J, Gluud C. Trial sequential analysis may establish when firm evidence is reached in cumulative meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 2008; 61:64-75. DOI: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2007.03.013.
17. MPS Research Unit. PEST 4. University of Reading: Reading, U.K., 2000.
18. Whitehead A, Whitehead J. A general parametric approach to the meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials. Statistics in Medicine 1991; 10:1665-1677. DOI: 10.1002/sim.4780101105.
19. Shuster JJ. Empirical vs natural weighting in random effects meta-analysis. Statistics in Medicine 2010; 29:1259-1265.
20. Laird N, Fitzmaurice G, Ding X. Comments on 'Empirical vs natural weighting in random effects meta-analysis'. Statistics in Medicine 2010; 29:1266-1267.
21. Waksman JA. Comments on 'Empirical vs natural weighting in random effects meta-analysis'. Statistics in Medicine 2010; 29:1268-1269.
22. Thompson SG, Higgins JPT. Comments on 'Empirical vs natural weighting in random effects meta-analysis'. Statistics in Medicine 2010; 29:1270-1271.
23. DerSimonian R, Laird N. Meta-analysis in clinical trials. Controlled Clinical Trials 1986; 7:177-188.
24. Higgins JPT, Thompson SG, Spiegelhalter DJ. A re-evaluation of random-effects meta-analysis. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A 2009; 172:137-159.
25. Bollen CW, Uiterwaal CS, van Vught AJ, van dT I. Sequential meta-analysis of past clinical trials to determine the use of a new trial. Epidemiology 2006; 17:644-649. DOI: 10.1097/01.ede.0000239658.19288.22.
26. O'Brien PC, Fleming TR. A multiple testing procedure for clinical trials. Biometrics 1979; 35:549-556.
27. Jennison C, Turnbull BW. Interim analyses: the repeated confidence interval approach. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B 1989; 51:305-361.
28. Biggerstaff BJ, Tweedie RL. Incorporating variability in estimates of heterogeneity in the random effects model in meta-analysis. Statistics in Medicine 1997; 16:753-768. DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0258(19970415)16:7 <753::AID-SIM494 >3.0.CO;2-G.
29. Hardy RJ, Thompson SG. A likelihood approach to meta-analysis with random effects. Statistics in Medicine 1996; 15:619-629. DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0258(19960330)15:6 <619::AID-SIM188 >3.0.CO;2-A.
30. Higgins JPT, Whitehead A. Borrowing strength from external trials in a meta-analysis. Statistics in Medicine 1996; 15:2733-2749. DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0258(19961230)15:24 <2733::AID-SIM562 >3.0.CO;2-0.
31. Cohen J. Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. Earlbaum: New Jersey, 1988.
32. Sacks HS, Chalmers TC, Blum AL, Berrier J, Pagano D. Endoscopic hemostasis: an effective therapy for bleeding peptic ulcers. Journal of the American Medical Association 1990; 264:494-499.
33. Bradburn MJ, Deeks JJ, Berlin JA, Localio AR. Much ado about nothing: a comparison of the performance of meta-analytical methods with rare events. Statistics in Medicine 2006; 26:53-77. DOI: 10.1002/sim.2528.
34. Egger M, Davey Smith G, Schneider M, Minder C. Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test. BMJ 1997; 315:629-634.
35. Harbord RM, Egger M, Sterne JA. A modified test for small-study effects in meta-analyses of controlled trials with binary endpoints. Statistics in Medicine 2006; 25:3443-3457.
36. Deeks JJ, Altman DG. Effect measures for meta-analysis of trials with binary outcomes. In Systematic Reviews in Health Care: Meta-analysis in Context, Egger M, Davey Smith G, Altman DG (eds). BMJ Publication Group: London, 2001; 313-335.
37. Chalmers TC, Lau J. Meta-analytic stimulus for changes in clinical trials. Statistical Methods in Medical Research 1993; 2:161-172. DOI: 10.1177/096228029300200204.
38. Sutton AJ, Cooper NJ, Jones DR, Lambert PC, Thompson JR, Abrams KR. Evidence-based sample size calculations based upon updated meta-analysis. Statistics in Medicine 2006; 26:2479-2500. DOI: 10.1002/sim.2704.
39. Stallard N, Facey KM. Comparison of the spending function methods and the christmas tree correction for group sequential trials. Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics 1996; 6:361-373. DOI: 10.1080/10543409608835149.
40. Berry DA. Interim analyses in clinical-trials: classical vs bayesian approaches. Statistics in Medicine 1985; 4:521-526. DOI: 10.1002/sim.4780040412.
41. Freedman LS, Spiegelhalter DJ. Comparison of Bayesian with group sequential methods for monitoring clinical trials. Controlled Clinical Trials 1989; 10:357-367. DOI: 10.1016/0197-2456(89)90001-9.
42. Jennison C, Turnbull BW. Group Sequential Methods with Applications to Clinical Trials. Chapman & Hall/CRC: Boca Raton, FL, 2000.