Statistics in medicine
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Network meta-analysis enables comprehensive synthesis of evidence concerning multiple treatments and their simultaneous comparisons based on both direct and indirect evidence. A fundamental pre-requisite of network meta-analysis is the consistency of evidence that is obtained from different sources, particularly whether direct and indirect evidence are in accordance with each other or not, and how they may influence the overall estimates. We have developed an efficient method to quantify indirect evidence, as well as a testing procedure to evaluate their inconsistency using Lindsay's composite likelihood method. ⋯ In addition, the efficiency of the developed method is demonstrated based on simulation studies. Applications to a network meta-analysis of 12 new-generation antidepressants are presented. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.