In meta-analyses, summary RRs (95% confidence interval (CI)) for an increase of 25(OH D by 20 ng/ml were 0.59 (0.92–0.73), 0.92 (0.82–1.04) and 0.73 (0.60–0.88) with P values of <0.001, 0.164 and 0.001 for case-control studies, nested case-control studies and both study designs combined, respectively.
Evidence of an association between vaginal yeast infections and HIV infection was based on fewer studies and showed heterogeneous results in unadjusted (summary effect 1.69, 95% CI 0.67 4.31, I2 81%) and adjusted analyses (summary effect 2.19, 0.97 4.94, I2 87%).
Following the statistical analyses, summary descriptive profiles of activity across all 5 conditions were constructed for 5 peak voxels within the left parietal lobe (Fig. 2).
The revised GATE has five sections covering: population, method of allocation to intervention and comparison, outcomes, analyses, summary and has a total of 28 items.
This section of the results where we have analysed summary statistics for each practice should be treated with caution as we may have failed to detect small but potentially important associations.
However, Bundred and Morris (2003) analysed summary data from the MWS publication and showed that the crude relative risk of breast cancer mortality was 0.725 for current users vs never-users in the subgroup of women diagnosed with breast cancer.
Meta-regression analyses, summaries of results for case-control studies, nested case-control studies, dose-response/substitution relations, and studies that did not directly bear on the GRADE evidence table are presented in appendix 3 and eTables 7-10 in appendix 2. Six prospective investigations examined the association between intake of saturated fats and all cause mortality.
In Results we analyse the summary data from 18 separate IPD meta-analyses to see whether the original conclusions could have been sensitive to the choice of fixed or random effects model.
Meta-analyses (MA) based on individual patient data (IPD) are regarded as the gold standard for meta-analyses and are becoming increasingly common, having several advantages over meta-analyses of summary statistics.
