Consistency and inconsistency in network meta‐analysis: model estimation using multivariate meta‐regression

Network meta-analysis (multiple treatments meta-analysis, mixed treatment comparisons) attempts to make the best use of a set of studies comparing more than two treatments. However, it is important to assess whether a body of evidence is consistent or inconsistent. Previous work on models for network meta-analysis that allow for heterogeneity between studies has either been restricted to two-arm trials or followed a Bayesian framework. We propose two new frequentist ways to estimate consistency and inconsistency models by expressing them as multivariate random-effects meta-regressions, which can be implemented in some standard software packages. We illustrate the approach using the mvmeta package in Stata.…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: DMS-0635449, 0635449
• MR
  Medical Research Council

  Awards: MC_EX_G0902100, G0902100, U105260558
• DO
  Division of Mathematical Sciences