A practical guide to understanding systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Neely, Gail J. MD
Magit, Anthony E. MD
Rich, Jason T. MD
Voelker, Courtney C.J. MD, DPhil (Oxon)
Wang, Eric W. MD
Paniello, Randal C. MD
Nussenbaum, Brian MD
Bradley, Joseph P. MD

From the ^aDepartment of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO; and ^bDivision of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Pediatric Otolaryngology, University of California at San Diego School of Medicine, San Diego, CA

Corresponding author: J. Gail Neely, MD, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, 660 S. Euclid Avenue, Box 8115, St. Louis, MO 63110.

E-mail address: [email protected].

No sponsorships or competing interests have been disclosed for this article.

Received April 3, 2009; revised August 13, 2009; accepted September 16, 2009.

Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery 142(1):p 6-14, January 2010.

ABSTRACT

A systematic review is a transparent and unbiased review of available information. The published systematic review must report the details of the conduct of the review as one might report the details of a primary research project. A meta-analysis is a powerful and rigorous statistical approach to synthesize data from multiple studies, preferably obtained from a systematic review, in order to enlarge the sample size from smaller studies to test the original hypothesis and/or to generate new ones.

The objective of this article is to serve as an easy to read practical guide to understand systematic reviews and meta-analyses for those reading them and for those who might plan to prepare them.