Tau-squared estimate for random effects model in metabin()

Hi Guido,

I am new to meta-analysis and your package has been of great help!

Pardon me for creating this issue about the code as well as the understanding of the DerSimonian-Laird method for the random effects model in the analysis of binary data.

Consider the following illustrative code:

data(Olkin95)

meta1 <- metabin(event.e, n.e, event.c, n.c, data = Olkin95, method = "Inverse")
meta2 <- metabin(event.e, n.e, event.c, n.c, data = Olkin95, method = "MH")

meta1$Q; meta2$Q
meta1$tau; meta2$tau

The Q statistics of heterogeneity are different because the methods for the fixed effect model are different. The DerSimonian-Laird estimates of tau-squared are also different.

I imagine this is because the respective Q statistic from the fixed effect method is directly used in the tau-squared estimation. However, in the original paper by DerSimonian and Laird (1986), they suggested using Q from the inverse-variance method. In two other reference (Normand 1999; Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, and Rothstein 2009), the Q from the inverse-variance method was the only option.

Could you provide some clarification about your choice (with possibly some references)? My apologies for any misunderstanding. Thank you for consideration!

References:

Borenstein, M. , Hedges, L. V., Higgins, J. P. and Rothstein, H. R. Introduction to Meta-Analysis. Chichester, U.K: John Wiley & Sons (2009).
DerSimonian R. and Laird N. Meta-analysis in clinical trials. Controlled Clinical Trials, 7(3), 177-188 (1986).
Normand, S. T. Meta‐analysis: formulating, evaluating, combining, and reporting. Statistics in Medicine, 18, 321-359 (1999).

Dear ymzhang-neo,

R function metabin() calculates the Q statistic for heterogeneity (and thus the DerSimonian-Laird estimate of between-study variance) like RevMan 5.3 (http://community.cochrane.org/help/tools-and-software/revman-5), the software used for preparing and maintaining Cochrane Reviews.

You can find the respective formulae in the manuscript Statistical algorithms in Review Manager 5 Jonathan J Deeks and Julian PT Higgins on behalf of the Statistical Methods Group of The Cochrane Collaboration August 2010 which is available in RevMan 5.3 (menu: Help - Statistical Algorithms in RevMan).

At the moment, this information is not available in the help page of metabin(), however, I will add it with the next update of meta on CRAN.

Best wishes, Guido

guido-s / meta

Tau-squared estimate for random effects model in metabin() #4