Table 1.
Description of methods to derive indirect and mixed estimates.
Table 2.
Description of statistical methods used to evaluate the consistency assumption.
Figure 1.
Flow chart of identified networks.
Figure 2.
Number of meta-analysis articles with full and star networks published between 1997–2012.
Figure 3.
Number of meta-analysis articles with full and star networks published by journal.
BMC: BioMed Central BMJ: British Medical Journal CDSR: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews CMRO: Current Medical Research & Opinion HTA: Health Technology Assessment JCE: Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.
Table 3.
Structural characteristics of full and star networks.
Table 4.
Characteristics of the primary outcomes and their measures in full and star networks published until 12/2012.
Table 5.
Characteristics of the treatment comparisons in full and star networks published until 12/2012.
Table 6.
Methods employed to synthesise data in full and star networks published until 12/2012.
Figure 4.
Number of published networks by year (1997–2012) and the Network Meta-Analysis method.
Networks that used more than one method are included in all relevant categories.
Table 7.
Statistical methods used to evaluate consistency in 151 full networks published until 12/2012.
Figure 5.
Number of published full networks by year (1997–2012) and the method employed to examine inconsistency.
Appropriate statistical methods are presented in Table 2. Networks that used more than one method are included in all relevant categories.