MetaEasy: A Meta-Analysis Add-In for Microsoft Excel

Meta-analysis is a statistical methodology that combines or integrates the results of several independent clinical trials considered by the analyst to be 'combinable' (Huque'88). However, completeness and user-friendliness are uncommon both in specialised meta-analysis software packages and in mainstream statistical packages that have to rely on user-written commands. We implemented the meta-analysis methodology in an Microsoft (Excel) add-in which is freely available and incorporates more meta-analysis models (including the iterative maximum likelihood and profile likelihood) than are usually available, while paying particular attention to the user-friendliness of the package.

[1]  Jessica Gurevitch,et al.  MetaWin: Statistical Software for Meta-analysis with Resampling Tests , 1997 .

[2]  H. Heinzl,et al.  A simulation study comparing properties of heterogeneity measures in meta‐analyses , 2006, Statistics in medicine.

[3]  Michele Tarsilla Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions , 2010, Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation.

[4]  J. Bailar The promise and problems of meta-analysis. , 1997, The New England journal of medicine.

[5]  D A Follmann,et al.  Valid Inference in Random Effects Meta‐Analysis , 1999, Biometrics.

[6]  D J Spiegelhalter,et al.  Bayesian approaches to random-effects meta-analysis: a comparative study. , 1995, Statistics in medicine.

[7]  Evangelos Kontopantelis,et al.  A comparison of Random Effects meta-analysis methods when study effects are non-normally distributed. , 2008 .

[8]  S G Thompson,et al.  A likelihood approach to meta-analysis with random effects. , 1996, Statistics in medicine.

[9]  F. Schmidt Meta-Analysis , 2008 .

[10]  D. Altman,et al.  Measuring inconsistency in meta-analyses , 2003, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[11]  Harukazu Tsuruta,et al.  Development and validation of MIX: comprehensive free software for meta-analysis of causal research data , 2006, BMC medical research methodology.

[12]  N. Laird,et al.  Meta-analysis in clinical trials. , 1986, Controlled clinical trials.

[13]  George Davey Smith,et al.  Meta-analysis: Principles and procedures , 1997, BMJ.

[14]  Sarah E. Brockwell,et al.  A comparison of statistical methods for meta‐analysis , 2001, Statistics in medicine.

[15]  Steff Lewis,et al.  Forest plots: trying to see the wood and the trees , 2001, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[16]  Tx Station Stata Statistical Software: Release 7. , 2001 .

[17]  S. Pocock,et al.  Can meta-analyses be trusted? , 1991, The Lancet.

[18]  G. Glass Primary, Secondary, and Meta-Analysis of Research1 , 1976 .

[19]  S. Thompson,et al.  Detecting and describing heterogeneity in meta-analysis. , 1998, Statistics in medicine.

[20]  Patrick Onghena,et al.  Multilevel Meta-Analysis: A Comparison with Traditional Meta-Analytical Procedures , 2003 .

[21]  Douglas G. Altman,et al.  Metan: Fixed- and Random-Effects Meta-Analysis , 2008 .

[22]  G. Smith,et al.  Meta-analysis: Potentials and promise , 1997, BMJ.

[23]  Alex J. Sutton,et al.  Meta‒Analysis Software , 2008 .

[24]  K R Abrams,et al.  Bayesian methods in meta-analysis and evidence synthesis. , 2001, Statistical methods in medical research.

[25]  V. Gebski,et al.  Specifying objectives and outcomes for clinical trials , 2002, The Medical journal of Australia.

[26]  David R. Jones,et al.  How vague is vague? A simulation study of the impact of the use of vague prior distributions in MCMC using WinBUGS , 2005, Statistics in medicine.

[27]  S Greenland,et al.  Random-effects meta-analyses are not always conservative. , 1999, American journal of epidemiology.

[28]  W. G. Cochran Problems arising in the analysis of a series of similar experiments , 1937 .

[29]  S. Thompson,et al.  Quantifying heterogeneity in a meta‐analysis , 2002, Statistics in medicine.

[30]  S G Thompson,et al.  Systematic Review: Why sources of heterogeneity in meta-analysis should be investigated , 1994, BMJ.

[31]  H J Eysenck,et al.  Systematic Reviews: Meta-analysis and its problems , 1994, BMJ.