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In Reply: Dr McGuire and colleagues are correct that the Edmonds et al¹ meta-analysis SMD result presented in Figure 4 of our article is erroneous and should have been "–0.77 (95% CI, –1.26 to –0.28)." The incorrect value in the figure was the one that appeared in Figure 1 in the version of their Cochrane review that was current the summer of 2005, which we used in our study.

We have checked the Cochrane review again and found that the estimate is now the same as above, although the trial data are the same. We have found that the meta-analysis that was published earlier in the Cochrane Library was not done with a random-effects model (although it was labeled as such) but with a fixed-effect model. This was apparently corrected after we accessed this information. We therefore checked the 6 other Cochrane reviews we reanalyzed but did not find any . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD, DrMedSci
pcg@cochrane.dk

Britta Tendal, MSc
Nordic Cochrane Centre
Rigshospitalet
Copenhagen, Denmark

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