Evidence Synthesis

Evidence synthesis @TEC includes literature review, systematic review and meta-analysis to combine various sources of quantitative evidence. The TEC director leads this program.

TEC will assess and synthesize the available published and unpublished data from clinical trials, cohort studies, case-control and cross-sectional studies of interventions and diseases to provide the clinicians and researchers with a state-of-the-art evidence summary and/or analysis that will form the basis of their research. The activities include the following:

  • Developing a scientific research question with key questions and analytic framework in collaboration with the clinician or researcher;
  • Developing search algorithms, implementing in library databases and selection of abstracts
  • Applying inclusion/exclusion criteria to select full texts to review and performing scientific literature reviews;
  • Synthesizing scientific evidence in a transparent and reproducible manner;
  • Extracting data from full texts and entering to Redcap database
  • Performing decision analyses, meta-analyses and cost effectiveness analysis;
  • Obtaining peer review from national and international experts;
  • Writing reports to summarize the evidence;
  • Providing technical assistance to help potential users translate evidence-based knowledge into clinical practice;
  • Conducting research on the methodology and process of developing systematic reviews and health technology assessments;
  • Developing, implementing and evaluating evidence-based tools to improve clinical practice;
  • Identifying and commenting on gaps in the literature, as well as suggesting potential research questions, study designs, and analytical methods to address these gaps in future studies; and
  • Publishing results of reports in peer-reviewed journals, presentations at conferences and preparation of special journal supplement.

TEC aims to increase the research areas or topics to be assessed by in each evidence synthesis project, including both Bayesian and frequentist methods for analysis. We obtain timelines and offer budgets suitable to internal and external researchers depending on the scope of the project. The TEC also provides guidance regarding review methodology and criteria.

Project examples:

1. NatHER: systematic evaluation of trends in survival among patients with HER2-positive advanced breast cancer
Study Design: Meta-analysis
PI: Mary Beattie & Eli Korner, Genentech

2. Role of statins in breast cancer
Study Design: Meta-analysis
PI: Sheldon Feldman (Columbia University) & Norman Javitt (NYU)