Systematic literature review and meta-analysis: The case of medical devices and medical locations

Abstract Innovative health technologies (e.g., medical devices, systems, and procedures) are typically tested more than once, often by different research teams in different sites. The results of multiple tests are often divergent and even conflicting, which makes health technology assessment a challenging endeavor. Systematic reviews of the literature and meta-analysis represent two useful tools to tackle the challenge of multiplicity and divergence of results above. They allow deriving evidence-based conclusions about a new health technology based on the body of research produced by different studies. A systematic review is a review of a research question that uses systematic methods to identify, select, and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect and analyze data from the studies included in the review. Meta-analysis is a set of statistical methods that allow analyzing and combining results from different studies, producing a more precise estimate of the effect of an innovative surgical procedure (e.g., robotically assisted surgery) than any individual study contributing to the pooled analysis. This chapter aims to familiarize the reader with the main concepts related to systematic reviews and meta-analysis.