A novel inference procedure for meta-analysis of rare events without artificial continuity corrections was developed and applied to 48 comparative trials evaluating rosiglitazone cardiovascular toxicity.
Meta-Analysis
Does rosiglitazone affect cardiovascular toxicity in patients from 48 comparative trials?
A novel exact inference procedure for meta-analysis allows for the inclusion of zero-event studies without artificial continuity correction, demonstrated through an analysis of rosiglitazone cardiovascular safety data.
Recently, meta-analysis has been widely utilized to combine information across comparative clinical studies for evaluating drug efficacy or safety profile. When dealing with rather rare events, a substantial proportion of studies may not have any events of interest. Conventional methods either exclude such studies or add an arbitrary positive value to each cell of the corresponding 2 x 2 tables in the analysis. In this article, we present a simple, effective procedure to make valid inferences about the parameter of interest with all available data without artificial continuity corrections. We then use the procedure to analyze the data from 48 comparative trials involving rosiglitazone with respect to its possible cardiovascular toxicity.
Tian et al. (Tue,) conducted a meta-analysis in cardiovascular toxicity. rosiglitazone was evaluated on cardiovascular toxicity. A novel inference procedure for meta-analysis of rare events without artificial continuity corrections was developed and applied to 48 comparative trials evaluating rosiglitazone cardiovascular toxicity.