[R-meta] Forest plot and sub-networks in netmeta

[Carla Gomez Creutzberg]

Greetings everyone,

I am conducting my first network meta-analysis and for that I have been
using netmeta.

I've read a bit on general and network meta-analysis I can;t seem to find
any indication as to how to interpret the grey boxes or interval
demarcations that show up in netmeta's forest plots?

[image: Inline image 1]

As shown in the image above (can also be found in the attachments as
"forest.pl.jpeg"), these boxes appear to be plotted around some (or perhaps
all) of the model estimates. In some cases they also appear to encompass an
interval longer than the 95%CI intervals for the estimate which is then
shown in white instead of black ink. I was wondering what type of interval
was represented by these boxes and it was something that was estimated for
all treatments or only some of them?

In addition, for a couple of the meta-analyses I am doing I have found that
the evidence networks are not well connected and end up as two separate
sub-networks. I was wondering whether it was appropriate to conduct
separate meta-analyses on the individual sub-networks or whether there was
any other way to try and tackle the analysis in these cases?

Thanks a lot for attention and any suggestions you can provide

Carla

On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 3:07 PM, Carla Gomez Creutzberg <cgomezcre at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Greetings everyone,
>
> I am conducting my first network meta-analysis and for that I have been
> using netmeta.
>
> I've read a bit on general and network meta-analysis I can;t seem to find
> any indication as to how to interpret the grey boxes or interval
> demarcations that show up in netmeta's forest plots?
>
> [image: Inline image 2]
>
> As shown in the image above (can also be found in the attachments as
> "forest.pl.jpeg"), these boxes appear to be plotted around some (or perhaps
> all) of the model estimates. In some cases they also appear to encompass an
> interval longer than the 95%CI intervals for the estimate which is then
> shown in white instead of black ink. I was wondering what type of interval
> was represented by these boxes and it was something that was estimated for
> all treatments or only some of them?
>
> In addition, for a couple of the meta-analyses I am doing I have found
> that the evidence networks are not well connected and end up as two
> separate sub-networks. I was wondering whether it was appropriate to
> conduct separate meta-analyses on the individual sub-networks or whether
> there was any other way to try and tackle the analysis in these cases?
>
> Thanks a lot for attention and any suggestions you can provide
>
>
> Carla
>
>



-- 
*Carla Gómez Creutzberg*
PhD. Candidate - Tylianakis Lab
<http://www.tylianakislab.org/the-group.html>
University of Canterbury - *Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha*
Christchurch, New Zealand <http://www.tylianakislab.org/the-group.html>
cgomezcre at gmail.com
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