Journal
STATISTICS IN MEDICINE
Volume 33, Issue 21, Pages 3639-3654Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/sim.6188
Keywords
inconsistency; mixed treatment comparisons; multiple treatments meta-analysis; network meta-analysis; sensitivity analysis
Categories
Funding
- Medical Research Council [G0902100, U105285807]
- British Heart Foundation [RG/08/014/24067] Funding Source: researchfish
- Medical Research Council [MR/K014811/1, MC_U105261167, MR/J013595/1, MC_EX_G0902100, MR/L003120/1, MR/L501566/1, MC_U105260558, MR/K025643/1, MC_U105285807] Funding Source: researchfish
- National Institute for Health Research [NF-SI-0512-10165] Funding Source: researchfish
- MRC [MR/J013595/1, MC_U105260558, MC_U105285807, MC_EX_G0902100, MR/K025643/1, MR/L003120/1, MC_U105261167] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Network meta-analysis is becoming more popular as a way to analyse multiple treatments simultaneously and, in the right circumstances, rank treatments. A difficulty in practice is the possibility of inconsistency' or incoherence', where direct evidence and indirect evidence are not in agreement. Here, we develop a random-effects implementation of the recently proposed design-by-treatment interaction model, using these random effects to model inconsistency and estimate the parameters of primary interest. Our proposal is a generalisation of the model proposed by Lumley and allows trials with three or more arms to be included in the analysis. Our methods also facilitate the ranking of treatments under inconsistency. We derive R and I2 statistics to quantify the impact of the between-study heterogeneity and the inconsistency. We apply our model to two examples. (c) 2014 The Authors. Statistics in Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available