IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/csdana/v56y2012i5p1028-1037.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Meta-analysis of time-to-event outcomes using a hazard-based approach: Comparison with other models, robustness and meta-regression

Author

Listed:
  • Fiocco, Marta
  • Stijnen, Theo
  • Putter, Hein

Abstract

The goal of meta-analysis is to provide a full and comprehensive summary of related studies which have addressed a similar question. A joint analysis of survival probabilities reported at a predetermined set of time points for a number of published studies is presented by employing three different models: two generalized linear models with normal errors, the first with fixed effects only, the second with additional random effects, and finally a hazard-based approach using a Poisson correlated gamma frailty model. Each trial contributing to the meta-analysis provides several survival proportions for each treatment. Such values clearly cannot be treated as independent data but correlations between them can be incorporated using a mixed model approach. The three methods are illustrated with data from 17 randomized controlled trials that tested the addition of chemotherapy to radiotherapy in postoperative malignant glioma in adults. A second issue addressed concerns the robustness of the Poisson correlated gamma frailty model under departures from the assumptions on censoring mechanism and on length of follow-up of each trial involved in the meta-analysis. In order to study this aspect of the Poisson correlated gamma frailty model a sensitivity analysis is performed. Results from the analysis show that the model is robust. The last issue described deals with the problem of heterogeneity between studies since it is well known that exploring the possible reasons for heterogeneity is an important aspect of conducting a meta-analysis. The causes of heterogeneity can be investigated by employing covariates at the study level. To exploit this aspect the Poisson correlated gamma frailty model is used for a meta-regression analysis of published survival curves on breast cancer data. The analysis performed has shown that the random effects model presents less variability when study-level covariates are incorporate in the model.

Suggested Citation

  • Fiocco, Marta & Stijnen, Theo & Putter, Hein, 2012. "Meta-analysis of time-to-event outcomes using a hazard-based approach: Comparison with other models, robustness and meta-regression," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(5), pages 1028-1037.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:csdana:v:56:y:2012:i:5:p:1028-1037
    DOI: 10.1016/j.csda.2011.05.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167947311001757
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.csda.2011.05.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yu, Dalei & Ding, Chang & He, Na & Wang, Ruiwu & Zhou, Xiaohua & Shi, Lei, 2019. "Robust estimation and confidence interval in meta-regression models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 93-118.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:csdana:v:56:y:2012:i:5:p:1028-1037. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/csda .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.