Comparison-adjusted funnel plot for the network of topical antibiotics without steroids for chronically discharging ears.

<p>Each observation is the difference between a study estimate and its direct meta-analysis mean effect. Studies on the right hand side ‘overestimate’ the effect of newer treatments.</p

Study limitations weighted by contribution of direct estimates to the network of topical antibiotics.

<p>The colours represent the risk of bias (green: low, yellow: moderate, red: high). The names of the treatments are given in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0099682#pone-0099682-g001" target="_blank">Figure 1</a>.</p

Summary of our confidence in effect estimates and ranking of treatments.

1<p>Dominated by evidence at high or moderate risk of bias.</p>2<p>No convincing evidence for the plausibility of the transitivity assumption.</p>3<p>Predictive intervals for treatment effect include effects that would have different interpretations (there is additionally no convincing evidence for the plausibility of the transitivity assumption).</p>4<p>Confidence intervals include values favouring either treatment.</p>5<p>60% of the information is from studies at moderate risk of bias.</p>6<p>Moderate level of heterogeneity, and some evidence of inconsistency in the network.</p

Contributions matrix: percentage contribution of each direct estimate to the network meta-analysis estimates.

<p>Rows correspond to network meta-analysis ORs (separated for mixed and indirect evidence) and columns correspond to direct meta-analysis ORs. The contribution of each direct comparison to the total network evidence that provides the ranking of the treatments is presented separately (row named Entire network). The sizes of the boxes are proportional to the percentage contribution of each direct estimate to the network meta-analysis estimates (rows 1–6) and to the entire network (row 7). The last row shows the number of included direct comparisons. The names of the treatments are given in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0099682#pone-0099682-g001" target="_blank">Figure 1</a>.</p

Summary of domain assessment for evaluating the quality of evidence from a network meta-analysis: Procedures for a pairwise effect estimate and overall ranking.

1<p>When integrating assessments about direct comparisons into a judgement about an NMA treatment effect or the ranking, more weight should be given to assessments from direct comparisons that contribute more information. We recommend use of the contributions matrix to quantify how much information each direct comparison contributes to the estimation of the NMA treatment effect under evaluation or the ranking.</p

Rankograms for topical antibiotics without steroids for chronically discharging ears.

<p>On the horizontal axes are the possible ranks and on the vertical axis the probability that each treatment achieves each rank.</p

Hypothetical (extreme) examples for ranking treatments with maximum (left) and minimal (right) imprecision.

<p>The entries in the table are the probabilities (as a percentage) of each treatment achieving each possible rank.</p

Network estimates of mean ORs, their 95% confidence intervals and 95% predictive intervals (red extensions).

<p>The names of the treatments are given in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0099682#pone-0099682-g001" target="_blank">Figure 1</a>.</p

Relative risk for cancer mortality according to prevalence of older participants (mean age ≥70 years) in primary and secondary prevention^{1, 2}.

pts = participants, CI = confidence interval, 1 Weights and between-subgroup heterogeneity test are from random-effects model, 2The HPS trial did not report the mean age. (TIF)</p

Relative risk for cancer mortality according to prevalence of older participants (mean age ≥70 years) in primary and secondary prevention in trials excluding cancer at baseline^{1, 2}.

pts = participants, CI = confidence interval, 1Weights and between-subgroup heterogeneity test are from random-effects model, 2The HPS trial did not report the mean age. (TIF)</p