Rajat Kalra, MBChB1, Pankaj Arora, MD, FAHA2, Charity Morgan, PhD3, Journal of Nuclear Cardiology | Official Journal of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology Conducting and Interpreting High-Quality Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Rajat Kalra, MBChB1, Pankaj Arora, MD, FAHA2, Charity Morgan, PhD3, Fadi G. Hage, MD, FASH, FACC, FASNC2,4, Ami E. Iskandrian, MD, MACC2, and Navkaranbir S. Bajaj, MD2,3  1 Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, U.S.A. 2 Division of Cardiovascular Disease, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, U.S.A. 3 Department of Biostatistics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, U.S.A. 4 Section of Cardiology, Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Birmingham, AL Copyright American Society of Nuclear Cardiology

Journal of Nuclear Cardiology | Official Journal of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology BACKGROUND 1-Systematic reviews (SR) and meta-analyses (MA) have a prominent role in clinical literature. 2-Just like any other form of clinical research, both techniques have been subject to criticisms about their validity and place in clinical evidence-based medicine. 3-Hence we seek to outline what SR and MA can offer clinicians and discuss the modern-day methodological standards for conducting these studies. Copyright American Society of Nuclear Cardiology

METHODS Study type: Narrative review Journal of Nuclear Cardiology | Official Journal of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology METHODS Study type: Narrative review Copyright American Society of Nuclear Cardiology

Insert a key table or a key figure If figure, insert legend Journal of Nuclear Cardiology | Official Journal of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology RESULTS Insert a key table or a key figure If figure, insert legend Lower confidence limit Upper confidence limit Grey box proportional to weight of study Black marker effect estimate of individual study Pooled study estimate diamond 95% CI Pooled study estimate Line of no effect Adapted with permissions from: J Am Heart Assoc. 2015 Dec 14;4(12) Example of Forest Plot Copyright American Society of Nuclear Cardiology

Journal of Nuclear Cardiology | Official Journal of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology CONCLUSIONS 1- SR and MA are important methods of critically appraising, summarizing, and further analyzing large topics in an organized fashion. 2- In turn, these tools can be used to provide summary estimates and generate new hypotheses to address important clinical controversies. 3- We detail the basic rationale, methodology, and statistical techniques used in their composition. Copyright American Society of Nuclear Cardiology