Fragility index of network meta-analysis with application to smoking cessation data.

ABSTRACT:

Background and objectives

The network meta-analysis (NMA) is frequently used to synthesize evidence for multiple treatment comparisons, but its complexity may affect the robustness (or fragility) of the results. The fragility index (FI) is recently proposed to assess the fragility of the results from clinical studies and from pairwise meta-analyses. We extend the FI to NMAs with binary outcomes.

Methods

We define the FI for each treatment comparison in NMAs. It quantifies the minimal number of events necessary to be modified for altering the comparison's statistical significance. We introduce an algorithm to derive the FI and visualizations of the process. A worked example of smoking cessation data is used to illustrate the proposed methods.

Results

Some treatment com

SUBMITTER: Xing A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7669670 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature