3rd EBR Conference: Judith ter Schure ALL-IN meta-analysis (WINNER - Best Oral Presentation)

Description

Science is justly admired as a cumulative process (“standing on the
shoulders of giants”), yet scientific knowledge is typically built on a
patchwork of research contributions without much coordination. This
lack of efficiency has specifically been addressed in clinical research
by recommendations for living systematic reviews and against research waste.
We propose to further those recommendations with ALL-IN meta-analysis: Anytime Live and Leading INterim meta-analysis. ALLIN provides statistical methodology for a meta-analysis that can be
updated at any time – reanalyzing after each new observation while
retaining type-I error guarantees, live – no need to prespecify the
looks, and leading – in the decisions on whether individual studies
should be initiated, stopped or expanded, the meta-analysis can be
the leading source of information. We illustrate the method for timeto-event data, showing how synthesizing data at interim stages of
studies can increase efficiency when studies are slow in themselves
to provide the necessary number of events for completion. The meta-analysis can be performed on interim data, but does not have
to. The analysis design requires no information about the number of
patients in trials or the number of trials eventually included. So it can
breathe life into living systematic reviews, through better and simpler
statistics, efficiency, collaboration, and communication

Period	6 Oct 2022
Held at	EVBRES – COST Action CA17117, Norway
Degree of Recognition	International