Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Centre for Evidence-Based Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China.
Res Synth Methods. 2021 Jan;12(1):45-54. doi: 10.1002/jrsm.1444. Epub 2020 Sep 9.
Individual patient data meta-analyses (IPD-MA) are regarded as the gold standard for systematic reviews, which also applies to systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) studies. An increasing number of DTA systematic reviews with IPD-MA have been published in recent years, but there is much variation in how these IPD-MA were performed. A number of existing methods were found, but there is no consensus as to which methods are preferred as the standard methods for statistical analysis in DTA IPD-MA.
To create a web-based tool which integrates recommended statistical analyses for DTA IPD-MA, and allows researchers to analyse the data and visualize the results with interactive plots.
A systematic methodological review was performed to identify statistical analyses and data visualization methods used in DTA IPD-MA. Methods were evaluated by the authors and recommended analyses were integrated into the IPDmada tool which is freely available online with the user interface developed with R Shiny package.
IPDmada allows users to upload their own data, perform the meta-analysis with both continuous and dichotomized tests, and incorporate individual level covariate-adjusted analysis. All tables and figures can be exported as .csv or .pdf files. A hypothetical dataset was used to illustrate the application of IPDmada.
IPDmada will be very helpful to researchers doing DTA IPD-MA, since it not only facilitates the statistical analysis but also provides a standard framework. The introduction of IPDmada will harmonize the methods used in DTA IPD-MA and ensure the quality of such analyses.
IPDmada is a newly developed web-based tool for performing statistical analysis of individual patient data meta-analysis of diagnostic accuracy and visualizing the results. The tool is freely available to all the researchers, and requiring no installation of statistical software/packages. The tool has an user-friendly interface, and allows meta-analysis on both dichotomized and continuous test results. Researchers can easily use this tool to investigate the threshold effect and covariate effect on the summary accuracy. The introduction and implementation of IPDmada will serve as a useful tool for DTA IPD-MA and increase the quality of such studies.
个体患者数据荟萃分析（IPD-MA）被视为系统评价的金标准，这同样适用于诊断测试准确性（DTA）研究的系统评价。近年来，越来越多的具有 IPD-MA 的 DTA 系统评价已经发表，但这些 IPD-MA 的执行方式存在很大差异。已经发现了一些现有的方法，但对于哪种方法作为 DTA IPD-MA 的标准统计分析方法，尚无共识。
创建一个基于网络的工具，该工具集成了 DTA IPD-MA 的推荐统计分析，并允许研究人员使用交互式图形分析数据和可视化结果。
系统地进行了方法学综述，以确定 DTA IPD-MA 中使用的统计分析和数据可视化方法。作者对方法进行了评估，并将推荐的分析方法整合到 IPDmada 工具中，该工具可在线免费使用，用户界面是使用 R Shiny 包开发的。
IPDmada 允许用户上传自己的数据，对连续和二分类测试进行荟萃分析，并纳入个体水平协变量调整分析。所有表格和图形都可以导出为.csv 或.pdf 文件。使用一个假设数据集来说明 IPDmada 的应用。
IPDmada 将非常有助于从事 DTA IPD-MA 的研究人员，因为它不仅方便了统计分析，还提供了一个标准框架。引入 IPDmada 将协调 DTA IPD-MA 中使用的方法，并确保此类分析的质量。
IPDmada 是一个新开发的基于网络的工具，用于对诊断准确性的个体患者数据荟萃分析进行统计分析并可视化结果。该工具可供所有研究人员免费使用，且无需安装统计软件/程序包。该工具具有用户友好的界面，允许对二分类和连续测试结果进行荟萃分析。研究人员可以轻松地使用该工具来研究阈值效应和协变量对汇总准确性的影响。IPDmada 的引入和实施将成为 DTA IPD-MA 的有用工具，并提高此类研究的质量。
