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Cited by 255

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 15 of the 15 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Uses and abuses of meta-analysis

Open access
Egger, Matthias, Smith, George Davey, Sterne, Jonathan AC·2001·Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Meta-analysis, the statistical combination of results from several studies to produce a single estimate of the effect of a treatment, continues to attract controversy. We illustrate the potentials and pitfalls of meta-analysis of controlled clinical trials. Cumulative meta-analysis demonstrates that this technique could prevent delays in the introduction of effective treatments. Meta-analyses are, however, liable to numerous biases both at the level of the individual trial ('garbage in, garbage out') and the dissemination of trial results (publication bias). We argue that meta-analysis should be performed only within the framework of systematic reviews--that is, reviews prepared using a systematic approach to minimise bias and address the combinability of studies.

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Crossref · 10.7861/clinmedicine.1-6-478

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Metadata

Authors
Egger, M., Smith, G. D., & Sterne, J. A.
Venue
Clinical Medicine
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2001-11
Volume
1
Issue
6
Pages
478-484
ISSN
1470-2118 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2147928436
Cited by
255
References
15
FWCI
8.98
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
hybrid

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Uses and abuses of meta-analysis. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.7861/clinmedicine.1-6-478
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Egger, M., Smith, G. D., & Sterne, J. A. (2001). Uses and abuses of meta-analysis. Clinical Medicine. https://doi.org/10.7861/clinmedicine.1-6-478

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.