A suite of Stata programs for network meta-analysis

Network meta-analysis involves synthesising the scientific literature comparing several treatments. Typically, two-arm and three-arm randomized trials are synthesized, and the aim is to compare treatments that have not been directly compared and often to rank the treatments. A difficulty is that the network may be inconsistent, and ways to assess this are required. In the past, network meta-analysis models have been fitted using Bayesian methods, typically in WinBUGS. I have recently shown how they may be expressed as multivariate meta-analysis models and hence fitted using mvmeta. However, various challenges remain, including getting the dataset in the correct format, parameterizing the inconsistency model, and making good graphical displays of complex data and results. I will show how a new suite of Stata programs, network, meets these challenges, and I will illustrate its use with examples.