Table 5 Strategies for modelling survival data obtained from many dissimilar sources
Statistical method | Accounts for individual-level variation | Accounts for between-study variation | R packages |
|---|---|---|---|
Fixed-effects meta-analysis | No; operates on summary statistics | No | Many software packages, e.g., meta and metafor |
Mixed-effects meta-analysis | No; operates on summary statistics | Yes | Many packages, e.g., meta and metafor; also general-purpose software such as lme4 may be used |
Survival analysis for pooled data | Yes | No | A number of packages, e.g., survival, eha and flexsurv |
Survival analysis with mixed effects | Yes | Yes | Most notably R/coxme; flexible software seems to be hard to find |