Cumulative network-meta-analyses practice guidelines and actual prescriptions of drug treatments for postmenopausal osteoporosis: a study protocol for cumulative network meta-analyses and meta-epidemiological study

摘要

IntroductionCumulative network meta-analysis (NMA) is a method to provide a global comparison of multiple treatments with real-time update to evidence users. Several studies investigated the ranking of cumulative NMA and the recommendations of practice guidelines. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has evaluated the cumulative NMA ranking and prescription patterns. Here, we present a protocol for a meta-epidemiological investigation to compare the results of cumulative NMA with the recommendations in postmenopausal osteoporosis practice guidelines and with the actual prescriptions.