title: Meta-analysis: Its strengths and limitations.
abstract: Nowadays, doctors face an overwhelming amount of information, even in narrow areas of interest. In response, reviews designed to summarize the large volumes of information are frequently published. When a review is done systematically, following certain criteria, and the results are pooled and analyzed quantitatively, it is called a meta-analysis. A well-designed meta-analysis can provide valuable information for researchers, policymakers, and clinicians. However, there are many critical caveats in performing and interpreting them, and thus many ways in which meta-analyses can yield misleading information.
authors.affiliation: Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, OH 44195, USA. walkere1@ccf.org
authors.forename: Esteban
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.forename: Adrian V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Hernandez
authors.forename: Michael W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Kattan
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research; D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015983:Selection Bias