Information‐Based Composite Likelihood Method for Hybrid Meta‐Analysis Integrating Individual Participant Data and Aggregated Data

Meta-analysis is a popular statistical technique in biomedical research. In particular, meta-analysis can assist clinicians in determining whether an intervention is effective or which intervention is most effective. Conventional meta-analysis combines aggregated information from multiple published studies and addresses a common research question. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in combining studies with individual participant data and studies with only aggregated data, with the aim of potentially improve statistical efficiency of the treatment effect estimators. We develop a novel information-based method using composite likelihood for hybrid meta-analysis integrating individual participant data and aggregated data. The proposed method utilizes all available information from aggregated data, including the descriptive statistics (if any) of the outcome variable and covariates reported in the published papers, and accounts for potential between-study variability in terms of the underlying distribution of the outcome. The unknown parameters are estimated by maximizing the composite likelihood function. The resulting estimators are shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal by using composite likelihood theory. Simulation studies demonstrate that the proposed method tends to be more efficient than the existing meta-analysis methods. An application to multiple clinical trials comparing LDL-C-lowering treatments is provided.