Meta-analysis
Indirect evidence: Network meta-analysis methods

Indirect comparison meta-analysis methods (also called network meta-analyses, in particular when multiple treatments are assessed simultaneously) generally use two main methodologies. First, is the Bucher method which is a single or repeated comparison of a closed loop of three-treatments such that one of them is common to the two studies and forms the node where the loop begins and ends. Therefore, multiple two-by-two comparisons (3-treatment loops) are needed to compare multiple treatments. This methodology requires that trials with more than two arms have two arms only selected as independent pair-wise comparisons are required. The alternative methodology uses complex statistical modelling to include the multiple arm trials and comparisons simultaneously between all competing treatments. These have been executed using Bayesian methods, mixed linear models and meta-regression approaches.
change_case:english_lowercase, keywords:existence