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Table 3 GRADE assessment of confidence in estimates of effect in randomized trials

From: Cardiovascular and microvascular outcomes of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists in type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled cardiovascular outcome trials with trial sequential analysis

Outcome

No. of participants (trials)

Risk of bias

Consistency

Directness

Precision

Publication bias

Quality

MACE

33,457 (4)

No serious limitations

Serious limitationsa

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

Moderate

All-cause death

33,457 (4)

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

No serious limitationsd

High

Cardiovascular death

33,457 (4)

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

High

Myocardial infarction

33,457 (4)

No serious limitations

No serious limitationsb

No serious limitations

Serious limitationsc

No serious limitations

Moderate

Stroke

33,457 (4)

No serious limitations

No serious limitationsb

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

High

Hospitalization for heart failure

33,457 (4)

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

No serious limitations

Serious limitationsc

No serious limitations

Moderate

  1. GRADE Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation
  2. aModerate to substantial heterogeneity: I2 = 50.1%
  3. bI2 = 24.4 and 28.8% respectively. Did not downgrade for mild heterogeneity
  4. c95% confidence interval (CI) include important harm and benefit
  5. dDid not downgrade even though Egger’s test detected a possible publication bias. We did not downgrade because all trials included were large-scale randomized trials and these tests had limited ability to adequately assess small-study effects due to a small number of trials