Comment on: heterogeneity in meta-analysis should be expected and appropriately quantified

Commentary: Heterogeneity in meta-analysis should be expected and appropriately quantified.

It is generally accepted that meta-analyses should assess heterogeneity, which may be defined as the presence of variation in true effect sizes underlying the different studies. This assessment might be achieved by performing a statistical test for heterogeneity, by quantifying its magnitude, by quantifying its impact or by a combination of these. Patsopoulos, Evangelou and Ioannidis propose me...

Heterogeneity, consistency and model fit should be assessed in Bayesian network meta-analysis.

We read with deep interest the article by Wang et al aimed to compare the efficacy of 20 non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in the short-term treatment of ankylosing spondylitis (AS). This Bayesian network meta-analysis indicated that etoricoxib was more effective in reducing pain in AS than some other NSAIDs. The result was very useful in the decisionmaking process, especially for ...

Most published and unpublished dissertations should be excluded from meta-analyses: comment on Moyer et al.

Moyer et al. [1] systematically collected published and unpublished dissertations evaluating psychosocial interventions for cancer patients and examined the methodological quality of these studies. They concluded that because published and unpublished dissertations differ little in methodological adequacy, the inclusion of unpublished dissertations in meta-analyses is desirable in order to avoi...

What Should be Expected from Medical Congresses?

I-14: Assisted Reproduction and Religion What Consideration Should Be and Should Not Be Relevant,

Several important issues are pertinent to an ethical discussion of the new technology today grouped under the name Assisted Reproduction Technology (ART). This is a moral imperative because each of us must decide what is to be considered ethically acceptable in assisted reproduction. Reflecting on the ethical dimension of ‘creating’ a new human life can play a major role in ensuring that in eac...