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Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses in Rheumatology

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Understanding Evidence-Based Rheumatology

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Abstract

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have been used in rheumatology for several purposes such as determining the efficacy or safety of certain treatment modalities, after individual studies had come up with differing or inconclusive results; comparing the efficacy of certain drugs with few no or few or no head-to-head trials are at hand; or determining the efficacy over a specific and relatively uncommon end point. Similarly determining the performance and accuracy of certain diagnostic tests or methods, bringing together genome-wide association studies or genetic polymorphism studies and studies on the cost-effectiveness is within the scope of systemic reviews and meta-analyses. In this chapter, we discuss the essential elements of a good systematic literature review that in turn would form the backbone of a good meta-analysis. We explain the elementary statistical meta-analysis methods and the most important plots, like the forest and funnel plot. We discuss the fixed-effect and the random-effects methods and introduce the usual measures for heterogeneity between studies. All methods are illustrated using an example from rheumatology.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Statistics and Bioinformatics, Leiden University Medical Center, 9600, 2300RC, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Theo Stijnen MSc, PhD

  2. Division of Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Istanbul University, Cerrahpasa Medical School, Cerrahpasa Tip Fakultesi, Kocamustafapasa, Istanbul, 34365, Turkey

    Gulen Hatemi MD

Authors
  1. Theo Stijnen MSc, PhD
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  2. Gulen Hatemi MD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Theo Stijnen MSc, PhD .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Istanbul University, Beyazit, Istanbul, Turkey

    Hasan Yazici

  2. New York University School of Medicine, NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases, New York, New York, USA

    Yusuf Yazici

  3. Department of Biostatistics, L-Biostat, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, and Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Emmanuel Lesaffre

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Stijnen, T., Hatemi, G. (2014). Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses in Rheumatology. In: Yazici, H., Yazici, Y., Lesaffre, E. (eds) Understanding Evidence-Based Rheumatology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08374-2_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08374-2_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-08373-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-08374-2

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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