2.7 Subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis
Subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis play an important role in order to explore the source of heterogeneity. Among them, methodology, statistics and clinical characteristics are all potential sources that may constitute heterogeneity. When there’s a huge difference in the results of clinical trials and the heterogeneity is significant, we removed one trial that is significantly different from the other trials and then combined the remaining studies to compare the results before and after the trial.