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Resolve conflicting rankings of outcomes in network meta-analysis: Partial ordering of treatments.

Gerta RückerGuido Schwarzer
Published in: Research synthesis methods (2017)
Network meta-analysis has evolved into a core method for evidence synthesis in health care. In network meta-analysis, 3 or more treatments for a given medical condition are compared, based on a number of clinical studies, usually randomized controlled trials. Often, many different endpoints are investigated, related to different aspects of the patient's outcome, such as efficacy, safety, acceptability, or costs of a treatment. Different outcomes may lead to different rankings of the treatments. We use the existing theory of partially ordered sets and show how the relations between the treatments in a network meta-analysis can be illustrated by Hasse diagrams, that is, directed graphs showing the partial order relations, and by structured scatter plots and biplots.
Keyphrases
  • systematic review
  • meta analyses
  • healthcare
  • randomized controlled trial
  • case control
  • type diabetes
  • metabolic syndrome
  • insulin resistance
  • social media
  • health insurance
  • monte carlo