Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
Department of Pediatrics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
Methods Mol Biol. 2021;2249:405-428. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1138-8_22.
The number of studies published in the biomedical literature has dramatically increased over the last few decades. This massive proliferation of literature makes clinical medicine increasingly complex, and information from multiple studies is often needed to inform a particular clinical decision. However, available studies often vary in their design, methodological quality, and population studied, and may define the research question of interest quite differently. This can make it challenging to synthesize the conclusions of multiple studies. In addition, since even highly cited trials may be challenged over time, clinical decision-making requires ongoing reconciliation of studies which provide different answers to the same question. Because it is often impractical for readers to track down and review all the primary studies, systematic reviews and meta-analyses are an important source of evidence on the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of any given disease. This chapter summarizes methods for conducting and reading systematic reviews and meta-analyses, as well as describes potential advantages and disadvantages of these publications.
过去几十年，生物医学文献的发表数量大幅增加。大量文献的涌现使临床医学变得愈发复杂，通常需要综合多项研究的信息才能为特定的临床决策提供参考。然而，现有研究在设计、方法学质量和研究人群方面往往存在差异，并且可能对感兴趣的研究问题有不同的定义。这使得综合多项研究的结论变得具有挑战性。此外，由于即使是高引用的试验也可能随着时间的推移而受到质疑，因此临床决策需要不断调和对同一问题提供不同答案的研究。由于读者追踪和审查所有原始研究通常是不切实际的，因此系统评价和荟萃分析是针对任何给定疾病的诊断、预后和治疗的重要证据来源。本章总结了进行和阅读系统评价和荟萃分析的方法，并描述了这些出版物的潜在优缺点。
