Exercise: Endarterectomy versus stenting for carotid artery stenosis using CMA2, answer 8

Question 8: How could we check for any evidence of publication bias?

Suggested answer:

To do this we must click "Return to table" again. There is an option "Analyses" at the top of the screen. This contains the option "Publication bias"

I got this funnel plot:

This looks quite symmetrical, so there is nothing here to suggest publication bias.

Clicking "Table" gives a large number of analyses which have been proposed to test for publication bias.

I clicked "next table" until I came to the Begg and Mazumdar rank correlation, as covered in the lectures. I chose the bottom P value, which is 0.46551, i.e. P = 0.5, no evidence of any publication bias.

C

Back to question.

Back to Systematic Reviews index.

To Martin Bland's home page.

This page maintained by Martin Bland.
Last updated: 16 February, 2010.

Back to top.