| Literature DB >> 27754556 |
Tim Friede1, Christian Röver1, Simon Wandel2, Beat Neuenschwander2.
Abstract
Random-effects meta-analyses are used to combine evidence of treatment effects from multiple studies. Since treatment effects may vary across trials due to differences in study characteristics, heterogeneity in treatment effects between studies must be accounted for to achieve valid inference. The standard model for random-effects meta-analysis assumes approximately normal effect estimates and a normal random-effects model. However, standard methods based on this model ignore the uncertainty in estimating the between-trial heterogeneity. In the special setting of only two studies and in the presence of heterogeneity, we investigate here alternatives such as the Hartung-Knapp-Sidik-Jonkman method (HKSJ), the modified Knapp-Hartung method (mKH, a variation of the HKSJ method) and Bayesian random-effects meta-analyses with priors covering plausible heterogeneity values; R code to reproduce the examples is presented in an appendix. The properties of these methods are assessed by applying them to five examples from various rare diseases and by a simulation study. Whereas the standard method based on normal quantiles has poor coverage, the HKSJ and mKH generally lead to very long, and therefore inconclusive, confidence intervals. The Bayesian intervals on the whole show satisfying properties and offer a reasonable compromise between these two extremes.Entities:
Keywords: Bayesian statistics; Between-study heterogeneity; Coverage probability; Orphan disease; Random-effects meta-analysis
Mesh:
Year: 2016 PMID: 27754556 PMCID: PMC5516158 DOI: 10.1002/bimj.201500236
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Biom J ISSN: 0323-3847 Impact factor: 2.207
Characteristics of the two half‐normal priors for log‐odds‐ratios
| Prior | Median | 95%‐interval |
|---|---|---|
| HN(0.5) | 0.337 | (0.016, 1.12) |
| HN(1.0) | 0.674 | (0.031, 2.24) |
Figure 1Forest plots for the five examples from rare diseases with various estimates of the treatment effect. In each panel, the top two rows show the data (numbers of cases and events in experimental and control groups) and the odds ratios with their 95% confidence intervals. The following rows show the different combined odds ratios and the estimated heterogeneity (posterior medians for the Bayesian approach).
Figure 2Densities of priors for the between‐trial heterogeneity used in the sensitivity analyses. The parameters for the log‐normal and inverse‐Gamma distributions were chosen so that the 5% and 95% quantiles match with those of the corresponding half‐normal distributions, that is HN(0.5) and HN(1.0) in the left and right panel, respectively.
Effect estimates (posterior medians and 95% credibility intervals) for the examples from Section 3 using different priors for the heterogeneity τ
| Heterogeneity prior | Crins et al. | Miller et al. | Mozobil | Romiplostim | Krystexxa |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| 0.16 (0.04, 0.78) | 0.59 (0.18, 1.74) | 5.34 (1.80, 15.95) | 0.19 (0.04, 0.80) | 7.14 (1.04, 49.15) |
|
| 0.16 (0.05, 0.49) | 0.60 (0.29, 1.14) | 5.34 (2.73, 10.48) | 0.19 (0.07, 0.53) | 7.14 (1.39, 36.70) |
|
| 0.16 (0.05, 0.58) | 0.60 (0.27, 1.23) | 5.34 (2.56, 11.19) | 0.19 (0.06, 0.60) | 7.14 (1.25, 40.80) |
|
| 0.16 (0.06, 0.45) | 0.60 (0.35, 0.99) | 5.34 (3.18, 8.98) | 0.19 (0.07, 0.49) | 7.14 (1.46, 35.01) |
|
| 0.16 (0.06, 0.47) | 0.60 (0.35, 1.00) | 5.34 (3.14, 9.08) | 0.19 (0.07, 0.51) | 7.14 (1.39, 36.57) |
|
| 0.16 (0.06, 0.42) | 0.61 (0.41, 0.90) | 5.33 (3.45, 8.25) | 0.19 (0.08, 0.46) | 7.14 (1.49, 34.08) |
Figure 4Coverage of interval estimators for different study sizes n 1 and n 2.
Figure 3Bias in estimating the between‐study heterogeneity τ for different study sizes n 1 and n 2.
Fractions (in %) of heterogeneity estimates turning out as zero
| True heterogeneity τ | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 1.0 |
| 25/25 | 68 | 67 | 62 | 47 | 29 |
| 100/100 | 68 | 63 | 52 | 29 | 15 |
| 400/400 | 68 | 53 | 34 | 16 | 8 |
| 25/100 | 68 | 65 | 60 | 41 | 23 |
| 100/400 | 68 | 61 | 46 | 24 | 13 |
| 25/400 | 68 | 65 | 59 | 39 | 22 |
Figure 5Mean lengths of confidence and credibility intervals for different study sizes n 1 and n 2.