{"doi":"10.17615/q4k7-mk19","title":"Meta-analysis methods and models with applications in evaluation of cholesterol-lowering drugs","abstract":"In this paper, we propose a class of multivariate random effects models allowing for the inclusion of study-level covariates to carry out meta-analyses. As existing algorithms for computing maximum likelihood estimates often converge poorly or may not converge at all when the random effects are multi-dimensional, we develop an efficient expectation–maximization algorithm for fitting multi-dimensional random effects regression models. In addition, we also develop a new methodology for carrying out variable selection with study-level covariates. We examine the performance of the proposed methodology via a simulation study. We apply the proposed methodology to analyze metadata from 26 studies involving statins as a monotherapy and in combination with ezetimibe. In particular, we compare the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol-lowering efficacy of monotherapy and combination therapy on two patient populations (naïve and non-naïve patients to statin monotherapy at baseline), controlling for aggregate covariates. The proposed methodology is quite general and can be applied in any meta-analysis setting for a wide range of scientific applications and therefore offers new analytic methods of clinical importance.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":144144,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9506,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":521959,"name":"Arvind Shah","orcid":"0000-0001-7373-5858","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":612658,"name":"Minghui Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-6000-6434","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":261663,"name":"Hui Yao","orcid":"0000-0002-9431-9244","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":390426,"name":"Joseph G. Ibrahim","orcid":"0000-0003-2428-6552","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":548592,"name":"Jianxin Lin","orcid":"0009-0006-7093-0969","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:17:45.339291Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}