BMJ Books Systematic Reviews in Health Care Meta Analysis in Context.pdf

© BMJ Publishing Group 2001
Chapter 4 © Crown copyright 2000
Chapter 24 © Crown copyright 1995, 2000
Chapters 25 and 26 © The Cochrane Collaboration 2000
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy-
ing, recording and/or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
First published in 1995
by the BMJ Publishing Group, BMA House, Tavistock Square,
London WC1H 9JR

First edition 1995
Second impression 1997
Second edition 2001
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-7279-1488–X
Typeset by Phoenix Photosetting, Chatham, Kent
Printed and bound by MPG Books, Bodmin, Cornwall
Contents
Contributors viii
Foreword xiii
Introduction
1 Rationale, potentials, and promise of systematic reviews 3
MATTHIAS EGGER, E DAVEY SMITH, KEITH O’ROURKE
Part I: Systematic reviews of controlled trials
2 Principles of and procedures for systematic reviews 23
MATTHIAS EGGER, E DAVEY SMITH
3 Problems and limitations in conducting systematic reviews 43
MATTHIAS EGGER, KAY DICKERSIN, E DAVEY SMITH
4 Identifying randomised trials 69
CAROL LEFEBVRE, MICHAEL JCLARKE
5 Assessing the quality of randomised controlled trials 87
PETER JÜNI, DOUGLAS G ALTMAN, MATTHIAS EGGER
6 Obtaining individual patient data from randomised
controlled trials 109
MICHAEL J CLARKE, LESLEY A STEWART
7 Assessing the quality of reports of systematic reviews:
the QUOROM pared to other tools 122
BEVERLEY SHEA, CATHERINE DUBÉ, DAVID MOHER
Part II: Investigating variability within and between studies
8 Going beyond the grand mean: subgroup analysis in
meta-analysis of randomised trials 143
E DAVEY SMITH, MATTHIAS EGGER
v
CONTENTS
9 Why and how sources of heterogeneity should be investigated 157
SIMON G THOMPSO