Dataset Information

MetaInsight: An interactive web-based tool for analyzing, interrogating, and visualizing network meta-analyses using R-shiny and netmeta.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Network meta-analysis (NMA) is a powerful analysis method used to identify the best treatments for a condition and is used extensively by health care decision makers. Although software routines exist for conducting NMA, they require considerable statistical programming expertise to use, which limits the number of researchers able to conduct such analyses. OBJECTIVES:To develop a web-based tool allowing users with only standard internet browser software to be able to conduct NMAs using an intuitive "point and click" interface and present the results using visual plots. METHODS:Using the existing netmeta and Shiny packages for R to conduct the analyses, and to develop the user interface, we created the MetaInsight tool which is freely available to use via the web. RESULTS:A package was created for conducting NMA which satisfied our objectives, and this is described, and its application demonstrated, using an illustrative example. CONCLUSIONS:We believe that many researchers will find our package helpful for facilitating NMA as well as allowing decision makers to scrutinize presented results visually and in real time. This will impact on the relevance of statistical analyses for health care decision making and sustainably increase capacity by empowering informed nonspecialists to be able to conduct more clinically relevant reviews. It is also hoped that others will be inspired to create similar tools for other advanced specialist analyses methods using the freely available technologies we have adopted.

SUBMITTER: Owen RK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6973101 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

MetaInsight: An interactive web-based tool for analyzing, interrogating, and visualizing network meta-analyses using R-shiny and netmeta.

Owen Rhiannon K RK Bradbury Naomi N Xin Yiqiao Y Cooper Nicola N Sutton Alex A

Research synthesis methods 20191011 4

<h4>Background</h4>Network meta-analysis (NMA) is a powerful analysis method used to identify the best treatments for a condition and is used extensively by health care decision makers. Although software routines exist for conducting NMA, they require considerable statistical programming expertise to use, which limits the number of researchers able to conduct such analyses.<h4>Objectives</h4>To develop a web-based tool allowing users with only standard internet browser software to be able to con ...[more]

PMID: 31349391

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Project description:BackgroundIndividual patient data meta-analyses (IPD-MA) are regarded as the gold standard for systematic reviews, which also applies to systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) studies. An increasing number of DTA systematic reviews with IPD-MA have been published in recent years, but there is much variation in how these IPD-MA were performed. A number of existing methods were found, but there is no consensus as to which methods are preferred as the standard methods for statistical analysis in DTA IPD-MA.ObjectivesTo create a web-based tool which integrates recommended statistical analyses for DTA IPD-MA, and allows researchers to analyse the data and visualize the results with interactive plots.MethodsA systematic methodological review was performed to identify statistical analyses and data visualization methods used in DTA IPD-MA. Methods were evaluated by the authors and recommended analyses were integrated into the IPDmada tool which is freely available online with the user interface developed with R Shiny package.ResultsIPDmada allows users to upload their own data, perform the meta-analysis with both continuous and dichotomized tests, and incorporate individual level covariate-adjusted analysis. All tables and figures can be exported as .csv or .pdf files. A hypothetical dataset was used to illustrate the application of IPDmada.ConclusionsIPDmada will be very helpful to researchers doing DTA IPD-MA, since it not only facilitates the statistical analysis but also provides a standard framework. The introduction of IPDmada will harmonize the methods used in DTA IPD-MA and ensure the quality of such analyses.HighlightsIPDmada is a newly developed web-based tool for performing statistical analysis of individual patient data meta-analysis of diagnostic accuracy and visualizing the results. The tool is freely available to all the researchers, and requiring no installation of statistical software/packages. The tool has an user-friendly interface, and allows meta-analysis on both dichotomized and continuous test results. Researchers can easily use this tool to investigate the threshold effect and covariate effect on the summary accuracy. The introduction and implementation of IPDmada will serve as a useful tool for DTA IPD-MA and increase the quality of such studies.

Project description:BACKGROUND:miRNAs regulate the expression of several genes with one miRNA able to target multiple genes and with one gene able to be simultaneously targeted by more than one miRNA. Therefore, it has become indispensable to shorten the long list of miRNA-target interactions to put in the spotlight in order to gain insight into understanding the regulatory mechanism orchestrated by miRNAs in various cellular processes. A reasonable solution is certainly to prioritize miRNA-target interactions to maximize the effectiveness of the downstream analysis. RESULTS:We propose a new and easy-to-use web tool MIENTURNET (MicroRNA ENrichment TURned NETwork) that receives in input a list of miRNAs or mRNAs and tackles the problem of prioritizing miRNA-target interactions by performing a statistical analysis followed by a fully featured network-based visualization and analysis. The statistics is used to assess the significance of an over-representation of miRNA-target interactions and then MIENTURNET filters based on the statistical significance associated with each miRNA-target interaction. In addition, the holistic approach of the network theory is used to infer possible evidences of miRNA regulation by capturing emergent properties of the miRNA-target regulatory network that would be not evident through a pairwise analysis of the individual components. CONCLUSION:MIENTURNET offers the possibility to consistently perform both statistical and network-based analyses by using only a single tool leading to a more effective prioritization of the miRNA-target interactions. This has the potential to avoid researchers without computational and informatics skills to navigate multiple websites and thus to independently investigate miRNA activity in every cellular process of interest in an easy and at the same time exhaustive way thanks to the intuitive web interface. The web application along with a well-documented and comprehensive user guide are freely available at http://userver.bio.uniroma1.it/apps/mienturnet/ without any login requirement.

Dataset Information

MetaInsight: An interactive web-based tool for analyzing, interrogating, and visualizing network meta-analyses using R-shiny and netmeta.

Publications

MetaInsight: An interactive web-based tool for analyzing, interrogating, and visualizing network meta-analyses using R-shiny and netmeta.

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