Evidence for the appraisal of tests (or test strategies) includes diagnostic accuracy evidence obtained from studies that assessed how well a test identifies patients with and without the target condition. Clinical and policy decision making questions are often comparative: we want to know how does the accuracy of a new test compare to that of one or more existing tests or current practice (comparative accuracy).

Many systematic reviews and meta-analyses assess the accuracy of one test at a time thus providing a limited view of the test options available for a given condition. Comparing multiple tests simultaneously is often challenging because studies that directly compare the performance of at least two diagnostic tests generally comprise a small subset of the available studies. Meta-analytic methods for comparing test accuracy continue to evolve, including methods that allow the incorporation of evidence from studies that have assessed only one of the tests of interest.

These videos, originally part of the Cochrane Learning Live webinar series, introduce participants to the challenges of comparative accuracy meta-analysis and current approaches.

The webinar was delivered in April 2021 and below you will find the videos from the webinar, together with accompanying slides to download [PDF].

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Presenter Bios

Yemisi Takwoingi is a biostatistician and Professor of Test Evaluation and Evidence Synthesis at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her primary research interests are in diagnostic test evaluation across a range of disease areas and in systematic review methodology, especially meta-analyses of diagnostic test accuracy studies. She is one of the three convenors of the Cochrane Screening and Diagnostic Tests Methods Group.