Clinical Trials

■■❚❙❘Chapter 38Meta-AnalysisDuolao Wang, Felicity Clemens,and Ameet BakhaiData for the assessment of new therapies may initially comefrom several modest-sized studies. It is not uncommon forthese data to be either contradictory or to vary regarding thesize of the treatment benefit. In situations like this, a metaanalysismight be valuable. A meta-analysis is a systematicmethod for combining the results of multiple similar studiesto allow more accurate conclusions to be drawn from a largerpooled number of subjects. Although the complexity of themethods used for a meta-analysis can be a limitation, awell-conducted meta-analysis provides a powerful guideto the benefits of a therapy and may pave the way for a large,definitive trial. In this chapter, we discuss how the metaanalysistechnique is gaining increasing credibility andattracting more scrutiny, making it useful for all researchersand clinicians to appreciate the essence of this method.439