How to Conduct High-Quality Systematic Review and Meta-analysis in Radiology and Interventional Radiology

Abstract

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses form a secondary research methodology that identifies and critically appraises all the relevant studies that are available in various databases to answer a particular research question in an unbiased and systematic manner. In the pyramid of level of evidence, the systematic review of high-quality studies is placed at the highest hierarchy position. Meta-analysis is the statistical analysis of the systematic review that provides pooled estimates of the effect of individual studies in the systematic review, but sometimes a meta-analysis may not always be possible. This article elaborates the key steps to conduct a high-quality systematic review and meta-analysis in the field of radiology and intervention radiology, which will help the readers to design and conduct them along with to understand and interpret this secondary research.

Keywords

systematic review - meta-analysis - pooled estimates - evidence-based medicine

Publication History

Article published online:
09 January 2025

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