Network Meta-Analysis in Relative Effectiveness Research

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For several medical questions of interest, many treatment options exist for the same indication. These treatments may have been compared against placebo or against each other in clinical trials. Knowing whether one specific treatment is better than placebo or some other specific comparator is only a fragment of the big picture, which should incorporate all available information. Ideally, one would know how all the treatment options rank against each other and the level of differences in treatment effects between all the available options. Network meta-analysis provides an integrated and unified method that incorporates all direct and indirect comparative evidence about treatments. Based in part on the ISPOR Task Force Reports on Indirect Treatment Comparisons, the fundamentals and concept...