1 Rationale, potentials, and promise of systematic reviews

• Reviews are essential tools for health care workers, researchers, consumers and policy makers who want to keep up with the evidence that is accumulating in their field. • Systematic reviews allow for a more objective appraisal of the evidence than traditional narrative reviews and may thus contribute to resolve uncertainty when original research, reviews, and editorials disagree. • Meta-analysis, if appropriate, will enhance the precision of estimates of treatment effects, leading to reduced probability of false negative results, and potentially to a more timely introduction of effective treatments. • Exploratory analyses, e.g. regarding subgroups of patients who are likely to respond particularly well to a treatment (or the reverse), may generate promising new research questions to be addressed in future studies. • Systematic reviews may demonstrate the lack of adequate evidence and thus identify areas where further studies are needed.

[1]  I. Chalmers,et al.  Helping Physicians To Keep Abreast of the Medical Literature: Medical and Philosophical Commentaries, 17731795 , 2000, Annals of Internal Medicine.

[2]  N Freemantle,et al.  beta Blockade after myocardial infarction: systematic review and meta regression analysis. , 1999, BMJ.

[3]  C. Adams,et al.  Content and quality of 2000 controlled trials in schizophrenia over 50 years , 1998, BMJ.

[4]  D. Cook,et al.  Does quality of reports of randomised trials affect estimates of intervention efficacy reported in meta-analyses? , 1998, The Lancet.

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

[6]  A. Hoes,et al.  Increased survival with beta-blockers: importance of ancillary properties. , 1997, Progress in cardiovascular diseases.

[7]  R. J. Hayes,et al.  Empirical evidence of bias. Dimensions of methodological quality associated with estimates of treatment effects in controlled trials. , 1995, JAMA.

[8]  S B Thacker,et al.  Methods for pooled analyses of epidemiologic studies. , 1994, Epidemiology.

[9]  D. Murphy,et al.  Setting limits in clinical medicine. , 1994, Archives of internal medicine.

[10]  J. Fleiss,et al.  The statistical basis of meta-analysis. , 1993, Statistical methods in medical research.

[11]  T C Chalmers,et al.  Cumulative meta-analysis of therapeutic trials for myocardial infarction. , 1992, The New England journal of medicine.

[12]  F. Mosteller,et al.  A comparison of results of meta-analyses of randomized control trials and recommendations of clinical experts. Treatments for myocardial infarction. , 1992, JAMA.

[13]  L Wilhelmsen,et al.  Cholesterol and total mortality: need for larger trials. , 1992, BMJ.

[14]  T. Chalmers,et al.  Minimizing the three stages of publication bias. , 1990, JAMA.

[15]  J R Teagarden,et al.  Meta‐Analysis: Whither Narrative Review? , 1989, Pharmacotherapy.

[16]  S. Goldstein.  Review of beta blocker myocardial infarction trials. , 1989, Clinical cardiology.

[17]  T C Chalmers,et al.  A comparison of statistical methods for combining event rates from clinical trials. , 1989, Statistics in medicine.

[18]  A. Detsky,et al.  Meta-analysis in medical research: strong encouragement for higher quality in individual research efforts. , 1989, Journal of clinical epidemiology.

[19]  M. Jenicek,et al.  Meta-analysis in medicine. Where we are and where we want to go. , 1989, Journal of clinical epidemiology.

[20]  R. Peto,et al.  Effects of adjuvant tamoxifen and of cytotoxic therapy on mortality in early breast cancer. An overview of 61 randomized trials among 28,896 women. , 1989, The New England journal of medicine.

[21]  L. Bolognese,et al.  RANDOMISED TRIAL OF INTRAVENOUS STREPTOKINASE, ORAL ASPIRIN, BOTH, OR NEITHER AMONG 17 187 CASES OF SUSPECTED ACUTE MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION: ISIS-2 , 1988, The Lancet.

[22]  S. Piantadosi,et al.  The ecological fallacy. , 1988, American journal of epidemiology.

[23]  G H Guyatt,et al.  Guidelines for reading literature reviews. , 1988, CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne.

[24]  S. Stigler,et al.  The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900 by Stephen M. Stigler (review) , 1986, Technology and Culture.

[25]  P. Gøtzsche.  Reference bias in reports of drug trials. , 1987, British medical journal.

[26]  G. Tognoni,et al.  The GISSI Study: further analysis. Italian Group for the Study of Streptokinase in Myocardial Infarction (Gruppo Italiano per lo Studio della Streptochinasi nell'Infarto Miocardico, GISSI). , 1987, Circulation.

[27]  R. Gelber,et al.  Interpretation of results from subset analyses within overviews of randomized clinical trials. , 1987, Statistics in medicine.

[28]  C. Mulrow.  The medical review article: state of the science. , 1987, Annals of internal medicine.

[29]  S Greenland,et al.  Quantitative methods in the review of epidemiologic literature. , 1987, Epidemiologic reviews.

[30]  R. Peto,et al.  Beta blockade during and after myocardial infarction: an overview of the randomized trials. , 1985, Progress in cardiovascular diseases.

[31]  J. Lewis,et al.  Confidence in results of beta-blocker postinfarction trials. , 1982, British medical journal.

[32]  J. Hampton.  The use of beta blockers for the reduction of mortality after myocardial infarction. , 1981, European heart journal.

[33]  J. Mitchell,et al.  Timolol after myocardial infarction: an answer or a new set of questions? , 1981, British medical journal.

[34]  Timolol-induced reduction in mortality and reinfarction in patients surviving acute myocardial infarction. , 1981, The New England journal of medicine.

[35]  J. Lewis,et al.  Multicentre post-infarction trial of propranolol in 49 hospitals in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Yugoslavia. , 1980, British heart journal.

[36]  R. Rosenthal,et al.  Statistical versus traditional procedures for summarizing research findings. , 1980, Psychological bulletin.

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

[38]  R. Whitlock,et al.  Effects of a beta-adrenergic receptor blocker in myocardial infarction treated for one year from onset. , 1972, British heart journal.

[39]  R. L. Plackett,et al.  STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS: VII. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE ARITHMETIC MEAN , 1958 .

[40]  C. Peters.  Summary of the Penn State Experiments on the Influence of Instruction in Character Education , 1933 .

[41]  L. Simpson.  Report on Certain Enteric Fever Inoculation Statistics , 1904, British medical journal.