ArticleBMC medical research methodology2025
The importance of considering variability in re-expression of effect estimates for use in meta-analyses.
Article in BMC medical research methodology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 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
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Birth weight in relation to maternal and neonatal biomarker concentration of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid: a meta-analysis and meta-regression from a systematic review.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2025Pooled it
- Response to "The importance of considering variability in re-expression of effect estimates for use in meta-analysis." (Kopylev and Dzierlenga 2025).BMC medical research methodology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Comparing and combining reports from different publication is of interest to many when conducting meta-analyses. However, challenges can arise with reports using transformations of the exposure data. A recent publication, Linakis et al. (BMC Med Res Methodol 24:6, 2024), compared methods for re-expression with the conclusion that the re-expression methods examined are not reliable. In their analysis, they treated the estimated effect estimates, which are random variables, as if they were constants, which have no inherent variability. This letter describes two places where this assumption was made and how it affected their conclusions. While the re-expression methods demonstrate potential room for refinement in terms of estimating the observed point estimate, with the statistically appropriate consideration of variability, use of re-expression for small to moderate sample sizes (up to approximately 5000) seems appropriate. That contrasts with the author's conclusion that use of re-expression methods is not suitable for meta-analyses.
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.