Yu and colleagues investigate in their well-conducted retrospective analysis the impact of preoperative insertion of an intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) on postoperative outcome in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) after acute myocardial infarction [ 1].
A well-conducted meta-analysis concluded that this technique reduced the risk of CR-BSI (RR = 0.4; 95% CI, 0.2-0.8) in patients with short-term CVCs [78].
A well-conducted meta-analysis involves examining the quality of the studies being compiled, the possibility of publication bias (i.e., whether studies that failed to find an association never got into the published literature), heterogeneity between studies, and, where heterogeneity is found, attempting to identify its source.
One well-conducted meta-analysis reported a similar relative and absolute risk reduction of major coronary effects between men and women treated with statins (number needed to treat [NNT] for men 27, 95% CI 23 43; NNT for women 31, 95% CI 19 75) [29].
A well-conducted meta-analysis concluded that this technique reduced the risk of CR-BSI (RR = 0.4; 95% CI, 0.2-0.8) in patients with short-term CVCs [ 78].
In this issue, the British Journal of Cancer publishes an interesting and well-conducted meta-analysis of published randomised trials of the use of clodronate in breast cancer.
These findings demonstrate that a well-conducted meta-analysis can produce results that can be of value to policymakers but the choice of inclusion/exclusion criteria and outcomes in this context needs careful consideration.
The current issue of the British Journal of Cancer contains a well-conducted meta-analysis of six small randomised trials comparing appropriate surgery, with or without tamoxifen to tamoxifen alone as primary treatment for elderly women with operable breast cancer.
These results demonstrate that a well-conducted meta-analysis can produce results that can be of value to policymakers but the choice of inclusion/exclusion criteria and outcomes in this context needs careful consideration.
See related research by Nannini et al., In a previous issue of Arthritis Research & Therapy, Nannini and colleagues [ 1] addressed the topic by a well-conducted meta-analysis and concluded that cyclophosphamide (CYC) treatment does not induce a statistically significant improvement in lung function in systemic sclerosis (SSc) interstitial lung disease (ILD).
A well-conducted meta-analysis by Pase et al. in 2011 [ 53], considering 10 intervention trials of n-3 PUFA supplementation, reported that the 2 main outcomes examined (PWV and systemic arterial compliance) were favorably affected by the intervention, thus providing strong support to the use of n-3 PUFA as an evidence-based mean to reduce arterial stiffness.
