现代荟萃分析不仅仅是将一系列类似研究的效果大小结合起来。目前，荟萃分析越来越多地应用于研究的初级分析之外的任何分析，以及大数据的分析。本书共26章，首先是为医疗卫生领域的非数学专业人员编写的，此外，也是为任何涉及科学研究领域的人编写的。从本世纪初至今，作者已经发表了20多篇创新的元分析。本版将回顾当前的技术状态，并为此目的使用作者自己的出版物中的方法学方面的内容，以及文献中的其他相关方法学问题。该领域是否有其他作品？是的，有，特别是在心理学领域。心理学家在1970年发明了元分析，并不断地更新方法论。虽然非常有趣，但他们的工作就像整个心理学学科一样，具有相当的探索性，所以他们对荟萃分析的关注度也很高。然后，是流行病学家的领域。他们中的很多人都是年轻人一派，他们经常发布一些令人震惊的消息，《美国医学会杂志》和其他出版商也乐于发表。当然，现实情况是，事情通常并不像看起来那么糟糕。最后，一些由专业统计学家编写的教科书，往往使用软件程序，菜单程序惨不忍睹，需要学习大量的语法。这让临床和其他卫生专业人员望而却步。本版是荟萃分析领域第一本完全由两位临床科学家编写的教科书，书中有许多数据实例和步骤分析，大多来自作者自己的临床研究工作。
Modern meta-analyses do more than combine the effect sizes of a series of similar studies. Meta-analyses are currently increasingly applied for any analysis beyond the primary analysis of studies, and for the analysis of big data. This 26-chapter book was written for nonmathematical professionals of medical and health care, in the first place, but, in addition, for anyone involved in any field involving scientific research. The authors have published over twenty innovative meta-analyses from the turn of the century till now. This edition will review the current state of the art, and will use for that purpose the methodological aspects of the authors' own publications, in addition to other relevant methodological issues from the literature. Are there alternative works in the field? Yes, there are, particularly in the field of psychology. Psychologists have invented meta-analyses in 1970, and have continuously updated methodologies. Although very interesting, their work, just like the whole discipline of psychology, is rather explorative in nature, and so is their focus to meta-analysis. Then, there is the field of epidemiologists. Many of them are from the school of angry young men, who publish shocking news all the time, and JAMA and other publishers are happy to publish it. The reality is, of course, that things are usually not as bad as they seem. Finally, some textbooks, written by professional statisticians, tend to use software programs with miserable menu programs and requiring lots of syntax to be learnt. This is prohibitive to clinical and other health professionals. The current edition is the first textbook in the field of meta-analysis entirely written by two clinical scientists, and it consists of many data examples and step by step analyses, mostly from the authors' own clinical research
