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"Summary: This collection of articles from Stata Journal and Stata Technical Bulletin provide a detailed description of a range of meta-analytic methods. They show how to conduct and interpret meta-analysis; how to produce flexible graphical displays; how to use meta-regression; how to examine bias, and how to conduct multivariate mea-analysis."

"AbstrakPURPOSE:Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has been widely used in China to treat allergic rhinitis (AR). However, several studies have produced conflicting data with regard to the efficacy of the medicine. Our aim was to perform a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) to evaluate the relative efficacy of CHM.METHODS:We systematically searched the PubMed, Medline, and Springer electronic databases up to March 2017 for RCTs comparing the efficacy of CHM versus placebo for the treatment of patients with AR. Total nasal symptoms and quality of life were assessed through pooling mean difference (MD) with its 95% confidence interval (CI). Moreover, sensitivity and subgroup analyses according to control design and quality of life assessment were performed to evaluate the source of heterogeneity.RESULTS:Eleven RCTs were enrolled in the meta-analysis. Assessment of overall heterogeneity indicated significant heterogeneity among the individual studies (I²=100%, P<0.00001), and thus ransomed effects model was used to pool data. CHM was found to significantly enhance quality of life compared with placebo (MD=-0.88, (95% CI: -1.55, -0.21); P=0.01). The symptom of itchy nose, sneezing or total nasal symptoms scores were not significantly improved after CHM treatment, although the improvement in itchy nose just failed to reach significance (MD=0.09, (95% CI: 0.00, 0.18); P=0.06).CONCLUSIONS:This study suggests that CHM appears to improve the quality of life of AR patients. However, these findings, as well as the findings for the effect of CHM on sneezing, total nasal symptoms, and the symptom of itchy nose, need to be substantiated in larger cohorts of AR patients by further well-designed studies."

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"The subject of the book is advanced statistical analyses for quantitative research synthesis (meta-analysis), and selected practical issues relating to research synthesis. Specifically the book describes multivariate analyses for several indices commonly used in meta-analysis (e.g., correlations, effect sizes, proportions and/or odds ratios), will outline how to do power analysis for meta-analysis (again for each of the different kinds of study outcome indices), and examines issues around research quality and research design and their roles in synthesis. For each of the statistical topics we will examine the different possible statistical models (i.e., fixed, random, and mixed models) that could be adopted by a researcher. "

"Modern meta-analyses do more than combine the effect sizes of a series of similar studies. Meta-analyses are currently increasingly applied for any analysis beyond the primary analysis of studies, and for the analysis of big data. This 26-chapter book was written for nonmathematical professionals of medical and health care, in the first place, but, in addition, for anyone involved in any field involving scientific research. The authors have published over twenty innovative meta-analyses from the turn of the century till now. This edition will review the current state of the art, and will use for that purpose the methodological aspects of the authors' own publications, in addition to other relevant methodological issues from the literature.Are there alternative works in the field? Yes, there are, particularly in the field of psychology. Psychologists have invented meta-analyses in 1970, and have continuously updated methodologies. Although very interesting, their work, just like the whole discipline of psychology, is rather explorative in nature, and so is their focus to meta-analysis. Then, there is the field of epidemiologists. Many of them are from the school of angry young men, who publish shocking news all the time, and JAMA and other publishers are happy to publish it. The reality is, of course, that things are usually not as bad as they seem. Finally, some textbooks, written by professional statisticians, tend to use software programs with miserable menu programs and requiring lots of syntax to be learnt. This is prohibitive to clinical and other health professionals."