To recap some of this message thread:
The article citation is Afilalo J, Duque G, Steele R, Jukema JW, de
Craen AJ, Eisenberg MJ. Statins for secondary prevention in elderly
patients: a hierarchical bayesian meta- analysis. J Am Coll Cardiol.
2008 Jan 1;51(1):37-45. PMID 18174034
A good rule of thumb is to evaluate how the data was selected and
collected for critical appraisal before concern regarding the
statistics. That was done in this case (and that is a daily process in
the DynaMed workflow). This particular systematic review met the
traditional quality criteria for these concepts.
So we are faced with a "face validity" concern when trying to interpret
the statistics for this particular meta-analysis. There are numerous
individual data comparisons that look like they should not be
statistically significant at all, yet are all showing similar results
for "posterior median relative risk (95% credible interval)" in the
Figure 2: Bayesian forest plot for all-cause mortality which is the
primary figure representing a key finding in this meta-analysis.
One of the authors of this paper is a statistician, but is that
sufficient to accept this statistical data? I'd be curious if some of
you could look at the actual paper and comment on the statistics in this
case.
Thanks.
Brian
---------------------------
Brian S. Alper, MD, MSPH
Editor-in-Chief, DynaMed (www.DynamicMedical.com)
Medical Director, EBSCO Publishing
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