IPDmada

IPDmada performs individual patient data meta-analyses (IPD‑MA) of diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) studies to estimate summary diagnostic accuracy and assess covariate and threshold effects using participant-level data.

Key Features:

• Integration of recommended statistical analyses: Incorporates results of a systematic methodological review to identify and include recommended statistical analyses for DTA IPD‑MA.
• Support for continuous and dichotomized test results: Accepts and analyses both continuous and dichotomized diagnostic test results.
• Covariate-adjusted analysis: Performs individual-level covariate-adjusted analyses to evaluate covariate impacts and threshold effects on summary accuracy.
• Interactive data visualization: Generates interactive plots to visualize diagnostic accuracy estimates and participant-level analyses.
• Export options: Exports tables and figures as .csv and .pdf files.

Scientific Applications:

• Systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy: Conducts IPD‑MA to harmonize and standardize statistical analyses across DTA studies.
• Estimation of summary accuracy and covariate effects: Uses participant-level data to produce more precise estimates of diagnostic accuracy and to assess how covariates and thresholds influence performance, informing clinical decision-making and policy.

Methodology:

Methods were selected via a systematic methodological review of statistical analyses for DTA IPD‑MA, recommended methods were integrated into the implementation, and the application was developed using the R Shiny package.