How to condunct a survival meta-analysis when the data for standard deviation ist missing?

More Jana von Holzen's questions See All

Non motile black dots in animal cell culture, tightly adhered to the cells along the cell periphery. Is it a contamination? How to get rid of them?

I am seeing non-motile black dots of almost equal size along the periphery of skin melanoma cell line A375. They are present in almost all the cells. They don't turn the media turbid. However...

18 January 2021 5,151 1 View

How To Run Granger Test with Panel Data? Do you have a practical guide?

Hello together, I would like to perform the Granger Test with my panel data. I am investigating 40 banks and examining the impact of digitization on ROA. Specifically, I have the variable...

01 December 2020 3,642 5 View

Does anyone have good examples of how aesthetic standards have influenced creative design in building structures?

My research is looking at the influence of creative design and technical standards on the development of architecture during a period of history. This has relevance to the modern day in terms of a...

05 November 2020 5,214 6 View

Best flow cytometry markers for Thp1-derived M1 and M2 macrophages?

Hi everybody, I am trying to polarize and differentiate thp1 cells to M1 and M2 macrophages. There are lots of different protocols, so I've been trying different incubation times and...

02 November 2020 8,554 3 View

Have you ever seen two peaks after preparation small RNA library for NGS?

Hi, I have problem with my libraries, I use ClenTag Small RNA Library Preparation Kit by Trilink. The material is RNA from plasma cells. I have already done this two years ago and everythink...

25 August 2020 8,459 1 View

What are the key things to write and publish a paper in a good indexed journal?

The major spices and ingredients to add flavour in a paper for a journal in the domain of Computer Vision and Machine Learning.

27 June 2020 7,967 10 View

How to decide that a work is suitable for a conference or a journal in the field of Computer Science & Engineering?

What are the deciding factors to submit a paper in conference or journal.

21 June 2020 1,604 8 View

How to compute distance between matrices?

Dear all, I'd like to compute the distance between two brain states. Each brain state is represented as a symmetric correlation matrix of X by X regions. As a result, I'd like a "distance matrix"...

09 June 2020 4,884 7 View

Metabarcoding fungi in lake sediment cores - advantages/disadvantages of ITS and 18S?

In my PhD, I want to analyse fungal communities in lake sediment cores from Siberia. One of the performed experiments will be a metabarcoding of the fungi. Therefore I am evaluating primers at the...

05 May 2020 3,920 1 View

Whether Lambert Academic Publishing (LAP) provide printed copies to author? Do authors need paymet or sharing bank setails?

Hello Everyone !! Does anyone have any experience in publishing through Lambert Academic Publishing (LAP)? Recently I got a request mail from them regarding publication. I want to know about the...

25 April 2020 2,651 2 View

How to compare two groups with only two measurements?

Hiiiii everyone! I have an enquiry on statistical analysis. I was looking for many forum and it's still cannot solve my problem. I want to compare means of two groups of data but only with two...

03 March 2021 8,796 3 View

Binary Logistic Generalized Linear Mixed model in SPSS. Is it doable?

I want to analyses the proportion of swimming sperm of three species of fish in two salinities. To analyse the proportion of swimming sperm in a Generalized Linear Model, I would use a Binary...

03 March 2021 2,297 3 View

Enhanced Yellow Fluorescent Protein (Aequorea victoria) DNA sequence?

I am on the lookout for the Enhanced Yellow Fluorescent Protein (Aequorea victoria) DNA sequence. Does anyone know where I can find it? Thank you in advance

03 March 2021 3,568 1 View

What kind of fluid could I use for a pitfall trap that also does not invalidate molecular testing?

Hi, I want to start testing pitfall trap to obtain ants samples, but I need to conduct molecular analysis on those insects. So, what kind of fluid can I use? Ethanol expires too early and I need...

03 March 2021 5,978 5 View

What's the best way to measure growth rates in House sparrow chicks from day 2 to day 10?

What's the best way to measure growth rates in House sparrow chicks from day 2 to day 10? Since, the growth curve from day 2 to 10 won't be like the "Logistic curve" it might not follow logistic...

03 March 2021 1,401 3 View

What test should i use in comparing the correlation between categorical and continuous variables?

Dear all, I have the variable (Surgery duration) represented by values in minutes and the variable (preoperative neuropraxia cases) represented as (Yes/No) values. I want to compare these two...

03 March 2021 5,427 5 View

Logistical regression using SPSS for a dichotomous dependent variable, with an independent variable of 1, 2, 5 and 10 seconds?

I have an experiment with 28 participants The independent variable is the times 1, 2, 5, and 10 used as the cross hairs during a task These 4 times were tested using 4 different blocks, each...

03 March 2021 9,692 2 View

Do we need to write protocol for a second study of a systematic review that has been registered and published?

I have conducted and published a systematic review and meta-analysis research with the topic related to public health and health pomotion (protocol was registed in PROSPERO). Now we want to...

03 March 2021 8,920 3 View

How to increase a model accuracy ?

dear community, my model is based feature extraction from non stationary signals using discrete Wavelet Transform and then using statistical features then machine learning classifiers in order to...

03 March 2021 6,994 5 View

How to find the mean, SD and CI in SPSS?

Hi, I hope that someone can help me with this task: I have 5 groups of participants which are numbered in SPSS from 1 to 5 (according to their group number) and are all under the variable group....

03 March 2021 506 3 View

Sébastien Buczinski

That's a challenging question! There are several methods to impute missing SD from studies. The different methods have been reviewed recently (Weir CJ, Butcher I, Assi V, Lewis SC, Murray GD, Langhorne P, Brady MC. Dealing with missing standard deviation and mean values in meta-analysis of continuous outcomes: a systematic review. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2018 Mar 7;18(1):25. doi: 10.1186/s12874-018-0483-0. PMID: 29514597; PMCID: PMC5842611. ).

The easiest ways are when some spread of the data is given (eg range, quartile...). However, other more complicated techniques can also be attempted (I'm more a R user so don't know how to implement these in SPSS).

Bruce Weaver

Hello Jana von Holzen. I have some questions.

What does "mean OS / PFS" mean?

What is the effect size you wish to compute for each study?

Re question 2, it sounds like it might be a (possibly standardized) mean difference. But you mentioned "survival", which makes me wonder if it might not be a hazard rate ratio.

Thanks for clarifying.

Ma'Mon Abu Hammad

Conducting a survival meta-analysis when the data for standard deviation (SD) is missing can be challenging. The SD is crucial for estimating the variance of the effect sizes and incorporating them into the meta-analysis. However, there are several approaches you can consider when dealing with missing SDs in survival meta-analysis:

Obtain SD from other sources: If possible, try to obtain the missing SDs from the original study authors or through additional communication. It's worth reaching out to the authors to inquire about the missing data or any additional information they can provide.

Calculate SD from other available statistics: If you have access to other statistics, such as confidence intervals (CIs), p-values, hazard ratios, or event rates, you may be able to estimate the missing SDs. Various methods, such as imputation techniques or approximations, can be employed to estimate SD from these available statistics.

Use imputation techniques: If no SDs or related statistics are available, you can consider imputation techniques. This involves imputing missing SD values based on the available information, such as the SDs from similar studies or studies with similar characteristics. However, this approach relies on assumptions and may introduce additional uncertainty.

Use alternative effect measures: Instead of relying on SD, you can consider alternative effect measures that do not require SD, such as hazard ratios or event rates. These measures may be available in the studies included in your meta-analysis and can be combined using appropriate methods for survival data, such as the inverse variance method or the Mantel-Haenszel method.

Sensitivity analysis: Perform sensitivity analyses to assess the impact of missing SDs on the overall results. This involves conducting the meta-analysis with and without imputed or assumed SDs to evaluate the robustness of the findings.

It is important to note that the choice of approach may depend on the specifics of your dataset, the available information, and the assumptions made. Consulting with a statistician or an expert in survival analysis can be beneficial to determine the most suitable approach for your particular meta-analysis.

Seyyed Amir Yasin Ahmadi

When your effect measure is rate (like OS rate) you do not need SD. You can estimate SE using normal (√pq/n) or logit transformed (√1/np+1/nq) or any other method.

If your OS is in month, you can conduct a weighted mixed model regression in which the observations are individual studies. Therefore, you do not need SD.