ReviewJournal of clinical epidemiology2013
Overall similarity and consistency assessment scores are not sufficiently accurate for predicting discrepancy between direct and indirect comparison estimates.
Review in Journal of clinical epidemiology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Analysis of the systematic reviews process in reports of network meta-analyses: methodological systematic review.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2013Pooled it
- A database to initiate methodological advances in the evaluation of transitivity assumption in network meta-analysis: qualitative features and limitations of the tracenma R package.BMC medical research methodology · 2025Article
- Exploring the Transitivity Assumption in Network Meta-Analysis: A Novel Approach and Its Implications.Statistics in medicine · 2025Article
- An empirical study on 209 networks of treatments revealed intransitivity to be common and multiple statistical tests suboptimal to assess transitivity.BMC medical research methodology · 2024Article
- Low awareness of the transitivity assumption in complex networks of interventions: a systematic survey from 721 network meta-analyses.BMC medicine · 2024Article
- Effectiveness and Tolerability of Different Recommended Doses of PPIs and HScientific reports · 2017Article
- An overview of conducting systematic reviews with network meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2014Review
- Characteristics of a loop of evidence that affect detection and estimation of inconsistency: a simulation study.BMC medical research methodology · 2014Article
- Review
- Simulation evaluation of statistical properties of methods for indirect and mixed treatment comparisons.BMC medical research methodology · 2012Article
- Is Network Meta-analysis a Revolutionary Statistical Tool for Improving the Reliability of Clinical Trial Results? A Brief Overview and Emerging Issues Arising.In vivo (Athens, Greece)Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesIndirect comparison methods have been increasingly used to assess the effectiveness of different interventions comparatively. This study evaluated a Trial Similarity and Evidence Consistency Assessment (TSECA) framework for assessing key assumptions underlying the validity of indirect comparisons. STUDY DESIGN AND
settingWe applied the TSECA framework to 94 Cochrane Systematic Reviews that provided data to compare two interventions by both direct and indirect comparisons. Using the TSECA framework, two reviewers independently assessed and scored trial similarity and evidence consistency. A detailed case study provided further insight into the usefulness and limitations of the framework proposed.
resultsTrial similarity and evidence consistency scores obtained using the assessment framework were not associated with statistically significant inconsistency between direct and indirect estimates. The case study illustrated that the assessment framework could be used to identify potentially important differences in participants, interventions, and outcome measures between different sets of trials in the indirect comparison.
conclusionAlthough the overall trial similarity and evidence consistency scores are unlikely to be sufficiently accurate for predicting inconsistency between direct and indirect estimates, the assessment framework proposed in this study can be a useful tool for identifying between-trial differences that may threaten the validity of indirect treatment comparisons.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.