Metafor package in R

metan in STATA

openmetaanalyst a free software from Tufts Medical Center

I would think that once the Cochrane Group's "Rev Man" exported a forest plot, you could make background transparent in any graphics program.

For publication, I usually set up forest plots in Excel as stock graphs with rotated labels. That way, my co-authors can tweak the image (font, scaling, etc) as they see fit.

You can try the Stata (Sterne, ed., 2009, [Stata Press]), if you hesitate to take the payment of Comprehensive Meta- Analysis (CMA) software. I did make some simple meta analysis by the former.

Thank for your tips.

I'll try to describe more strictly my problem.

I'm going to add in to my paper some simple graph describing effect of different factors who were identified in logistic regression as independent risk factors of death/complications. So I rather need simple software to create this simple graph.

Method in excel with modification of XY graph is working, but in my opinion is too laborious for describe many factors. Have any other suggestions?

Stock plots work

You can try excel /stata/sas(version 9.3)

In STATA you can edit the graph and so make the background transparent.

Click on plot region and select none for the color. Attached is example, with blue circle showing up behind the forest.

following link with excel file is very friendly, you can use it ( http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/5/52 )

if you use STATA, please use the attached file file as guideline.

It is also recommended to use medcalc, meta analysis function.

Good luck.

Revman software works very well

R is one of the more flexible programs for creating high quality and custom graphics. There are several R packages with functionality to complete your task, one of which being the 'metafor' package. Also, see this recent blog post: for an R users custom forest plot functions:

http://mcfromnz.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/forest-plots-in-r-ggplot-with-side-table/

Dong stock plots in Excel would be very fiddly. Better to use something that is designed for the job.

Metafor package in R

metan in STATA

openmetaanalyst a free software from Tufts Medical Center

Any good software package has a meta analysis module which will do this. I tend to use R for most things.

However, there are good specailist meta analysis packages. The simplest system by far is Revman, from the cochrane group.

Thank you again all for many tips!

In my opinion excel sheet created by me will be useful for many presentations/publications. I had to spend some time to optimalise it to my own use, but it is very easy to further modifications.

Yes, please go to cochran review group and download from there the RevMan Software which got this option

Cochrane Review Manager, its free and easy to use.

I would suggest that you download Revman from the Cochrane Collaboration.

It is free downloadable and you may use it without the necessity to write a Cochrane review.

Revman software is open source and validated. It is also quite user friendly and requires no scripts (such as STATA) to create the forest plots.

Please download from:

http://ims.cochrane.org/revman/download

Revman 5.2, it works good. You can download it from cochrane.com

Yes, Cochrane Revman is widely used, Stata is user friendly. I am happy to see the command of meta analysis in stata here.

I would recommend: MetaDAS: A SAS macro for meta-analysis of diagnostic accuracy studies. User guide version 1.3 (2012). (PDF 2.7MB, opens in new window)

Quick reference and worked example (2012). (PDF 2.6MB, opens in new window)

The SAS macro itself: METADAS v1.3. This is provided as a text-file and opens in a new window.

Can RevMan be used for prevalence studies.

I worked in Stata. I found it user-friendly.

The downloadable command in STATA is very flexible and will do what you ask of it, including forest-plot type graphical outputs of odds ratios, coefficients etc. with confidence intervals.

Well,rather than R,STATA or other packages/softwares that are not easy to gain good command of,esp. for freshmen,forestplots can be alternatively made with MS Excel without compromising any flexibility,as described in detail by Jeruza et al(link below).

Here is an example graph I reproduced using excel 2000 in another online forum.

http://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1756-0500-5-52

Building on what Zhong says, you could easily use Microsoft Excel for this as well. In fact, we have been developing workbooks for meta-analysis with exactly this aim, check www.meta-essentials.com for freely available spreadsheets (you need workbook 2 if you download it).

You can easily insert the data to calculate odds ratios and the second tab (forest plot) will give you what you want.

R has several packages, I would recommend the following for those with no R experience:

R package forestplot: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/forestplot/vignettes/forestplot.html 

and the following for those with any R experience:

R package ggplot2: https://sakaluk.wordpress.com/2016/02/16/7-make-it-pretty-plots-for-meta-analysis/ would recommend for those that want to make other advanced plots in R (and willing to put in the extra time investment)  Another set of examples can be found at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15420621/reproduce-table-and-plot-from-journal/20144999

"Foresplot" package in R

You can use MedCalc (medcalc.org), it permits to perform simple Forest plots with the Odds Ratio, and the upper and lower limits.

I agree with A. C. Del Re