Cumulative meta-analysis

Definition

A meta-analysis in which studies are added one at a time in a specified order (e.g. according to date of publication or quality) and the results are summarized as each new study is added.

Cumulative meta-analysis

• A type of meta-analysis in which studies are sequentially pooled by adding each time one new study according to an ordered variable. For instance, if the ordered variable is the year of publication, studies will be ordered by it; then, a pooling analysis will be done every time a new article appears. It shows the evolution of the pooled estimate according to the ordered variable.
• In a graph of a cumulative meta-analysis, each horizontal line represents the summary of the results as each study is added, rather than the results of a single study.
• Other common variables used in cumulative meta-analysis are the study quality, the risk of the outcome in the control group, the size of the difference between the groups, and other covariates (for example, mean time to treatment).

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