Network meta-analysis, electrical networks and graph theory
Network meta-analysis, electrical networks and graph theory
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DOI：
10.1002/jrsm.1058
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发表时间：
2012-12-01
影响因子：
9.8
通讯作者：
Ruecker, Gerta
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Ruecker, Gerta
网络荟萃分析是临床生物统计学中一个活跃的研究领域。它的目的是将针对特定医疗条件的一组治疗中的所有随机比较的信息结合起来。我们展示了图论方法如何应用于网络元分析。元分析图由顶点(处理)和边(随机比较)组成。我们说明了元分析网络和电网络之间的对应关系，其中方差对应于电阻、对电压的处理效果以及对电流的加权处理效果。在此基础上，我们证明了通常应用于电网络的图论方法在网络荟萃分析中也能很好地工作。更详细地，可以通过拉普拉斯矩阵的摩尔-彭罗斯伪逆来估计在边缘引起的所产生的一致处理效果。此外，处理效果的方差被类似于电气有效电阻来估计。结果表明，该方法计算简单，应用于成对Meta分析时，可得到通常的固定效应模型估计，而应用于网络Meta分析实例时，其结果与已发表的结果一致。此外，还解决了异质性和不一致性、随机效应建模和包含多武装试验的问题。版权所有(C)2012 John Wiley&Sons，Ltd.
Network meta-analysis is an active field of research in clinical biostatistics. It aims to combine information from all randomized comparisons among a set of treatments for a given medical condition. We show how graph-theoretical methods can be applied to network meta-analysis. A meta-analytic graph consists of vertices (treatments) and edges (randomized comparisons). We illustrate the correspondence between meta-analytic networks and electrical networks, where variance corresponds to resistance, treatment effects to voltage, and weighted treatment effects to current flows. Based thereon, we then show that graph-theoretical methods that have been routinely applied to electrical networks also work well in network meta-analysis. In more detail, the resulting consistent treatment effects induced in the edges can be estimated via the Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse of the Laplacian matrix. Moreover, the variances of the treatment effects are estimated in analogy to electrical effective resistances. It is shown that this method, being computationally simple, leads to the usual fixed effect model estimate when applied to pairwise meta-analysis and is consistent with published results when applied to network meta-analysis examples from the literature. Moreover, problems of heterogeneity and inconsistency, random effects modeling and including multi-armed trials are addressed. Copyright (C) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.