Meta-analytic Thinking and Other Spin-Offs of Meta-analysis

Abstract

Terms like meta-learning and meta-analytic thinking are obviously spin-offs of meta-analysis methodology. At the same time meta-analysis has provided us with the ugliest graph in scientific research, the forest plot, otherwise called the blobbogram. Nonetheless, forest plots are currently increasingly applied for picturing patient characteristics in clinical studies, for propensity score assessments, for sensitivity assessments of the primary analysis in almost any clinical study. Pooled effect size assessments of important not only of the main outcomes of studies, but also of any other important or unimportant scientific issues. Another spin-off is, that the inclusion of a meta-analysis of the studies in the past are, currently, increasingly observed in novel interventional trials. This chapter will give examples of all of these spin-offs.