Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Sequential methods for random-effects meta-analysis
AU - Higgins, Julian P. T.
AU - Whitehead, Anne
AU - Simmonds, Mark
PY - 2011/4/30
Y1 - 2011/4/30
N2 - Although meta-analyses are typically viewed as retrospective activities, they are increasingly being applied prospectively to provide up-to-date evidence on specific research questions. When meta-analyses are updated account should be taken of the possibility of false-positive findings due to repeated significance tests. We discuss the use of sequential methods for meta-analyses that incorporate random effects to allow for heterogeneity across studies. We propose a method that uses an approximate semi-Bayes procedure to update evidence on the among-study variance, starting with an informative prior distribution that might be based on findings from previous meta-analyses. We compare our methods with other approaches, including the traditional method of cumulative meta-analysis, in a simulation study and observe that it has Type I and Type II error rates close to the nominal level. We illustrate the method using an example in the treatment of bleeding peptic ulcers.
AB - Although meta-analyses are typically viewed as retrospective activities, they are increasingly being applied prospectively to provide up-to-date evidence on specific research questions. When meta-analyses are updated account should be taken of the possibility of false-positive findings due to repeated significance tests. We discuss the use of sequential methods for meta-analyses that incorporate random effects to allow for heterogeneity across studies. We propose a method that uses an approximate semi-Bayes procedure to update evidence on the among-study variance, starting with an informative prior distribution that might be based on findings from previous meta-analyses. We compare our methods with other approaches, including the traditional method of cumulative meta-analysis, in a simulation study and observe that it has Type I and Type II error rates close to the nominal level. We illustrate the method using an example in the treatment of bleeding peptic ulcers.
KW - meta-analysis
KW - sequential methods
KW - cumulative meta-analysis
KW - prospective meta-analysis
KW - prior distributions
U2 - 10.1002/sim.4088
DO - 10.1002/sim.4088
M3 - Journal article
VL - 30
SP - 903
EP - 921
JO - Statistics in Medicine
JF - Statistics in Medicine
SN - 1097-0258
IS - 9
ER -