MetaEasy: A Meta-Analysis Add-In for Microsoft Excel

Abstract

Meta-analysis is a statistical methodology that combines or integrates the results ofseveral independent clinical trials considered by the analyst to be `combinable' (Huque1988). However, completeness and user-friendliness are uncommon both in specialisedmeta-analysis software packages and in mainstream statistical packages that have to relyon user-written commands. We implemented the meta-analysis methodology in an Mi-crosoft Excel add-in which is freely available and incorporates more meta-analysis models(including the iterative maximum likelihood and prole likelihood) than are usually avail-able, while paying particular attention to the user-friendliness of the package.

Keywords

• meta-analysis
• forest plot
• Excel
• VBA
• maximum likelihood
• pro