🗞️ Availability of evidence and comparative effectiveness for surgical versus drug interventions: an overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Objectives This study aims to examine the prevalence of comparisons of surgery to drug regimens, the strength of evidence of such comparisons and whether surgery or the drug intervention was favoured. Design Systematic review of systematic reviews (umbrella review). Data sources Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Eligibility criteria Systematic reviews attempt to compare surgical to drug interventions. Data extraction We extracted whether the review found any randomised controlled trials (RCTs) for eligible comparisons. Individual trial results were extracted directly from the systematic review. Synthesis The outcomes of each meta-analysis were resynthesised into random-effects meta-analyses. Egger’s test and excess significance were assessed.

BMJ     Jan 10, 2024