Background Systematic Reviews (SRs) of experimental animal studies are not yet common
practice, but awareness of the merits of conducting such SRs is steadily increasing. As …

… Dr Rovers reported that she is a co-convenor of the Cochrane Collaboration IPD Meta-analysis
Group and has undertaken several IPD reviews. Dr Riley reported that he has conducted …

Background Acute otitis media (AOM) is one of the most common diseases in childhood for
which antibiotics are commonly prescribed; a systematic review reported a pooled …

Objectives Evaluating the variation in the strength of the effect across studies is a key feature
of meta-analyses. This variability is reflected by measures like τ 2 or I 2 , but their clinical …

Background Estimating attributable mortality of ventilator-associated pneumonia has been
hampered by confounding factors, small sample sizes, and the difficulty of doing relevant …

Otitis media (OM) continues to be one of the most common childhood infections and is a
major cause of morbidity in children. The pathogenesis of OM is multifactorial, involving the …

Background Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection is associated with subsequent recurrent
wheeze. Observational studies cannot determine whether RSV infection is the cause of …

Background There is growing interest to implement multiparametric magnetic resonance
imaging (mpMRI) and MR-guided biopsy (MRGB) for biopsy-naïve men with suspected prostate …

Variance between studies in a meta-analysis will exist. This heterogeneity may be of clinical,
methodological or statistical origin. The last of these is quantified by the I 2 -statistic. We …

Context Correct assessment of tumour stage is crucial for prostate cancer (PCa) management.
Objective To assess the diagnostic accuracy of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for …