OBJECTIVES:

Network Meta-Analysis (NMA) is becoming more commonly used method comparing several treatments at one time. Since the methodology applied in such approach is not straightforward (includes Bayesian statistics and random sampling) it essential to keep the highest methodological standard on each step to ensure credibility of such analyses. Nowadays the related methodology is developed and grounded in number of guidelines. But is it really commonly applied in published journal articles? In this research aimed to assess reporting quality and transparency using related subdomain of the ISPOR checklist.

METHODS:

A systematic PubMed search of NMAs published in 1st quarter of 2017 were performed. We restricted to NMAs based on randomized controlled trials, containing at least four treatments. The information on reporting quality and transparency including reporting of individual study results (necessary to re-conduct the calculations) , presentation of all pairwise contrasts between interventions as obtained with the NMA reported along with measures of uncertainty and ranking of interventions provided by outcome (essential to fully understand the results) were extracted.

RESULTS: CONCLUSIONS:

Nowadays there are tools, such us the ISPOR one, facilitating the review process of NMA journal submissions. Their role should be increased since there are still some typical gaps made by the authors decreasing credibility of that kind of analyses.