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Publishing a surgical meta-analysis is described as a project consisting of the following four main phases:

Planning: This initial phase involves framing a focused, decision-relevant clinical question using the PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparator, Outcomes) framework. It also includes assembling a multidisciplinary team and drafting and registering a formal protocol to pre-specify methods and eligibility criteria.

Doing the review: This phase encompasses the systematic gathering and screening of evidence. It involves performing a systematic search across multiple databases, screening studies in duplicate, documenting the study flow via a PRISMA diagram, and extracting data while assessing the risk of bias using structured tools like RoB 2 or ROBINS-I.

Doing the statistics: In this phase, the project moves into quantitative synthesis. This includes choosing appropriate effect measures (such as risk ratios for binary outcomes or mean differences for continuous ones), selecting a statistical model (often random-effects in surgical research), and assessing heterogeneity and publication bias.

Navigating journals and peer review: The final phase involves interpreting the findings using frameworks like GRADE to rate the certainty of evidence. It includes writing a PRISMA-compliant manuscript, selecting a suitable journal for submission, and responding to feedback during the peer-review process.

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DISCLAIMER: This content is for reference only and you must follow local/standard guidelines in clinical practice

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