PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Esteban Walker
AU  - Adrian V. Hernandez
AU  - Michael W. Kattan
TI  - Meta-analysis: Its strengths and limitations
DP  - 2008 Jun 01
TA  - Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine
PG  - 431--439
VI  - 75
IP  - 6
4099  - http://www.ccjm.org/content/75/6/431.short
4100  - http://www.ccjm.org/content/75/6/431.full
SO  - Cleve Clin J Med2008 Jun 01; 75
AB  - Nowadays, doctors face an overwhelming amount of information, even in narrow areas of interest. In response, reviews designed to summarize the large volumes of information are frequently published. When a review is done systematically, following certain criteria, and the results are pooled and analyzed quantitatively, it is called a meta-analysis. A well-designed meta-analysis can provide valuable information for researchers, policymakers, and clinicians. However, there are many critical caveats in performing and interpreting them, and thus many ways in which meta-analyses can yield misleading information.