SynthesisSystematic reviews2021
Using median survival in meta-analysis of experimental time-to-event data.
Synthesis in Systematic reviews, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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
12 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Nal-IRI (liposomal irinotecan) plus 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin versus 5-fluorouracil for metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma following gemcitabine-based therapy. A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Clinical & experimental metastasis · 2026Pooled it
- Efficacy of chimeric antigen receptor natural killer cells in treatment of ovarian cancer. A meta-analysis of pre-clinical studies.Immunologic research · 2026Pooled it
- Outcomes for recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer by HPV status: a systematic review and meta-analysis.The oncologist · 2025Pooled it
- Modular (universal) CAR-T platformsFrontiers in immunology · 2024Pooled it
- Review
- Estimands and their implications for evidence synthesis for oncology: A simulation study of treatment switching in meta-analysis.Research synthesis methods · 2026Article
- Simple imputation method for meta-analysis of survival rates when precision information is missing.Research synthesis methods · 2025Article
- Treatment approaches for non-metastatic small cell bladder cancer: a meta-analysis of reconstructed Kaplan-Meier curves.Clinical and translational radiation oncology · 2025Review
- Effectiveness of Medical Treatment on Survivability in Canine Cushing's Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Review
- Assessing the Vulnerability of Splenectomized Patients to Severe COVID-19 Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Vaccines · 2025Review
- Assessment of NSCLC disease burden: A survival model-based meta-analysis study.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTime-to-event data is frequently reported in both clinical and preclinical research spheres. Systematic review and meta-analysis is a tool that can help to identify pitfalls in preclinical research conduct and reporting that can help to improve translational efficacy. However, pooling of studies using hazard ratios (HRs) is cumbersome especially in preclinical meta-analyses including large numbers of small studies. Median survival is a much simpler metric although because of some limitations, which may not apply to preclinical data, it is generally not used in survival meta-analysis. We aimed to appraise its performance when compared with hazard ratio-based meta-analysis when pooling large numbers of small, imprecise studies.
methodsWe simulated a survival dataset with features representative of a typical preclinical survival meta-analysis, including with influence of a treatment and a number of covariates. We calculated individual patient data-based hazard ratios and median survival ratios (MSRs), comparing the summary statistics directly and their performance at random-effects meta-analysis. Finally, we compared their sensitivity to detect associations between treatment and influential covariates at meta-regression.
resultsThere was an imperfect correlation between MSR and HR, although the opposing direction of treatment effects between summary statistics appeared not to be a major issue. Precision was more conservative for HR than MSR, meaning that estimates of heterogeneity were lower. There was a slight sensitivity advantage for MSR at meta-analysis and meta-regression, although power was low in all circumstances.
conclusionsWe believe we have validated MSR as a summary statistic for use in a meta-analysis of small, imprecise experimental survival studies-helping to increase confidence and efficiency in future reviews in this area. While assessment of study precision and therefore weighting is less reliable, MSR appears to perform favourably during meta-analysis. Sensitivity of meta-regression was low for this set of parameters, so pooling of treatments to increase sample size may be required to ensure confidence in preclinical survival meta-regressions.
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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.