TY - JOUR T1 - Meta-analysis: Its strengths and limitations JF - Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine JO - Cleve Clin J Med SP - 431 LP - 439 VL - 75 IS - 6 AU - Esteban Walker AU - Adrian V. Hernandez AU - Michael W. Kattan Y1 - 2008/06/01 UR - http://www.ccjm.org/content/75/6/431.abstract N2 - 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. ER -