Making forest plots for oncology meta-analysis

In this section, we will use what we learned so far about the study design and the data and combine that with Python programming to make the forest plots. Forest plots are one of the main data visualization tools in Meta-analysis.

Here is how you can visualize the results using the forest plot:

# Show forest plot
figure.forest(results).show()

Here is the resulting forest plot:

Figure 14.1 – Basic forest plot using Pymeta

Notice how I wrote what the values on the plot represent. So, all the values here are Progression-Free Survival Risk Ratios (PFS RRs) as calculated using the IV method specified before. This metric is used as a treatment efficacy measure.

The forest plot shows interesting results. First, it can be seen that all the studies favor the experimental treatment, which is the targeted TKI therapy over the traditional chemotherapy (control) in this case. Study 3 (Mok_T_et_al) has...