BMJ  2005;331 (15 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7521.0-f

How to use indirect evidence on multiple treatments

On p 897 Caldwell and colleagues describe the process, with examples, for deciding what is the best treatment for a condition when three or more possible treatments are available. Large, high quality randomised trials of all available treatments are rare; most trials, and hence meta-analyses, are pair-wise, using placebo or current treatment as comparators. Thus, the need exists to develop reliable methods for incorporating indirect evidence into policy making. The authors claim that statistical methods are available for combining direct and indirect evidence and that these should be more widely used to compare multiple treatments.

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Simultaneous comparison of multiple treatments: combining direct and indirect evidence

Deborah M Caldwell, A E Ades, and J P T Higgins
BMJ 2005 331: 897-900. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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