title: Diagram of reliability and net gain: a new method for summarizing and displaying the results of controlled trials.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Sound evidence-based clinical and policy therapy recommendations depend on a process of acquiring literature, appraising it for study design and quality, and assessing its results in terms of relative benefits and harms. In this article we describe two summary metrics that have been developed to assist guideline developers to assess the importance of the quality/size of trials and the relative benefit and harm of treatments, and a related graphical method for displaying them together.
  
  
  METHODS
  To illustrate this graphic approach, we have used the evidence base for drug therapies for neuropathic pain. "Reliability" is calculated from the sample size and quality of trials, while the second metric, "Net Gain," is calculated from the relative benefit and harm of each trial.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The graphical method differentiated the evidence for neuropathic pain drugs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This graphical output provides a simple and relatively easy way to understand summary of information on large amounts of trial data across a number of therapies, which may present an impression of the evidence at a glance even for a non-expert. The usefulness of this graphical approach needs to be tested in the development of future clinical guidelines.
authors: Department of Neurological Science, La Sapienza University, Roma, Italy. cruccu@uniroma1.it
authors: Giorgio
authors: G
authors: Cruccu
authors: Rod S
authors: RS
authors: Taylor
mesh_terms: D000700:Analgesics / Q000627:therapeutic use; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D006801:Humans; D010146:Pain / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000453:epidemiology; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D018401:Sample Size
chemical_list: D000700:Analgesics