ReviewPharmacoEconomics2026
Landscape Analysis of Literature Using Quantitative Approaches to Synthesize Economic Evaluation Studies: A Scoping Review.
Review in PharmacoEconomics, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionSeveral quantitative approaches are available for synthesizing evidence from economic evaluations (EEs). This scoping review mapped the landscape of such studies, identified quantitative synthesis methods, and examined their frequency, settings, and study characteristics.
methodsSearches were conducted in PubMed, Embase, Epistemonikos, EconLit, and the DARE database from inception to October 2025. Eligible studies included those using quantitative methods to combine findings from multiple EEs. Studies were classified by synthesis method, with frequencies and distributions analyzed descriptively and summarized narratively.
resultsA total of 63 studies were included. Most were from high- and middle-income countries, covering diverse health areas, with pharmacological interventions representing the largest proportion. Eight quantitative synthesis methods were identified, with meta-analysis of incremental net benefit (INB) being the most commonly applied (n = 44; 69.8%). Among non-INB methods, separate pooling of incremental costs and effects was most frequent (n = 9), followed by regression and meta-regression (each n = 3), and meta-analysis of incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) (n = 2). Other methods, including reciprocal ICER ratios, cost-effect ratios, and network meta-analysis of INB, were each reported once. Over the past 5 years, the INB approach consistently surpassed non-INB methods, showing an increasing trend, although evidence from this approach remains largely confined to high- and middle-income countries.
conclusionsThe INB approach is the most commonly used method. It quantifies cost-effectiveness, captures the direction and magnitude of effects, characterizes uncertainty, and highlights variation across studies, but is largely limited to high-and middle-income settings. Future research should address existing methodological challenges and its utility in low-income settings.
Identifiers
42696255What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.