Difference in Restricted Mean Survival Time for Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Using Individual Patient Data Meta-Analysis: Evidence from a Case Study Difference in Restricted Mean Survival Time and IPD-MA

Abstract

The individual patient data meta-analysis (IPD-MA) has become the gold standard for obtaining the best evidence for treatment effects (e.g. see ). The aim of an IPD-MA is to estimate a pooled treatment effect from the aggregation of data from all randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that investigated the same clinical question . This pooled treatment effect is a relative outcome measure often expressed for survival data as a pooled hazard ratio. By contrast, economic evaluation uses an absolute outcome measure such as the number of life-years gained associated with the experimental treatment .