Effects of different interventions on animal models of ischemic stroke: Protocol for an overview and a network meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Ischemic stroke often leads to lifelong disability or death in stroke patients. It is one of the most common causes of death and disability worldwide, so it is a global health problem. The objective of this protocol is to provide the methods for using overview and network meta-analysis to identify the more effective intervention for infarct volume and neurobehavioral score in animal models of ischemic stroke. METHODS: A systematic literature search will be conducted in PubMed and Embase to obtain relevant systematic reviews on December 11, 2018. Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR2) and SYRCLE's risk of bias tool will be used to assess quality of the included reviews and risk of bias of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for animal studies. Infarct volume and neurobehavioral score will be chosen as primary and secondary outcomes. The relative effect size of the treatment will be calculated using the standardized mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence interval (CI). R 3.5.1 through the GEMTC package will be used to perform a network meta-analysis to synthesize direct and indirect evidence. RESULTS: The results of this paper will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication. CONCLUSION: Our study can provide a reference for further clinical practice and can be compared with clinical trial results to obtain a more credible therapeutic effect of this intervention. ETHICS AND COMMUNICATION: Formal ethical approval is unnecessary, because this study is based on published researches. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42019126811