Again, this has been reported by other reviews relying on intervention coding [ 19] and in particular it was sometimes difficult to distinguish between the intervention and the study measures.
Univariate analyses of the association between the various study measures and outcomes were conducted using Log-rank tests and examination of survival curves.
20 The relationship between study measures was assessed using Spearman's rank correlations (CIs were estimated using bootstrapping with 1000 iterations).
21 To estimate the strength of correlations between study measures, a correction for attenuation arising from measurement error was applied:, 22 23 where ρxy=true correlation between x and y, rxy=observed correlation between x and y, rxx=estimated reliability of x and ryy=estimated reliability of y.
HRpQCT and pQCT assess different aspects of bone quality, which may also explain the discrepancy between the studies; HRpQCT measures predominantly trabecular bone in greater detail and in a more distal part of the radius and tibia, whereas pQCT gives a better evaluation of cortical bone.
Heterogeneity between the studies was measured by Q test and I test [ 21, 22], while potential publication bias was investigated using funnel plot and Begg's test [ 23].
First, although structural equation modeling proposes a causal relationship between variables, the current study measured all variables cross-sectionally and, thus, can most appropriately speak to associations between variables observed at a single point in time, not causality.
Differences in mRNA abundance between the study categories were measured using GeneSpring GX 7.3 software, as were the class prediction procedures.
Students' t-tests and chi-square tests were used to assess the statistical significance of differences across study measures between the study groups.
Approximately 53% of the variability between studies' measures of association was due to the presence of a moderate heterogeneity, assessed through the statistic I (53% [95% CI 0 78]), Cochran Q test P value = 0.031 (Fig. 2).
