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Figure 6 (Top panel) Sequential Bayesian meta-analysis with respect to "aggressive" versus "conservative" management of acute ischemic syndromes in five clinical trials (A through E). The acronyms and publication dates of the trials are as follows: A = TIMI-IIIB (1994); B = VANQWISH (1998); C = FRISC-II (1999); D = TACTICS TIMI-18 (2001); E = RITA-3 (2002). The y-axis of the graph represents the posterior probability of therapeutic benefit for the hypothesis that the 6- to 12-month risk of death or myocardial infarction exceeded the putative threshold of benefit (>0%, >10%, >20%). The x-axis denotes the sequence of the analysis in parallel with the date of publication: A (given an uninformative prior); B given A; C given A and B; D given A and B and C; E given A and B and C and D. (Bottom panel) A conventional fixed-effects meta-analysis of the same trials. The solid squares represent mean risk ratios derived from the empirical data, and the horizontal lines represent associated 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The solid diamond represents the overall risk ratio (its extremes denoting the associated 95% CI). A chi-square test for heterogeneity reveals significant heterogeneity among the studies (p = 0.017), attributable almost entirely to FRISC-II, and an overall OR of 0.88 in favor of the aggressive approach (95% CI 0.78 to 1.00; p = 0.04).
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