Figure 3.

Hazard ratios of death according to patients’ sex. A) The hazard ratios (HRs) of death for patients assigned to intervention treatment (ie, chemotherapy plus anti–PD-1 or anti–PD-L1) compared with those assigned to control treatment (ie, chemotherapy), according to sex. Squares indicate study-specific hazard ratios. Values less than 1 indicate intervention is better than control. Size of the square is proportional to the precision of the estimate (ie, the inverse of the variance). Horizontal lines indicate the 95% confidence interval (CI). Diamonds indicate the meta-analytic pooled hazard ratios, calculated separately in women and men, with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals. The dashed vertical lines indicate the sex-specific pooled hazard ratios, and the solid vertical line indicates a hazard ratio of 1, which is the null-hypothesis value (ie, no association between type of treatment and risk of death). B) The interaction between treatment efficacy and sex. Each filled circle indicates the study-specific ratio of hazard ratios, that is, the ratio of the reported hazard ratios in men and in women. Values greater than 1 indicate that the effect of the intervention compared with control is greater for women than for men. Size of the circle is proportional to the precision of the estimate (ie, the inverse of the variance). Horizontal lines indicate the 95% confidence interval. The diamond indicates the meta-analytic pooled ratio of hazard ratios, with its corresponding 95% confidence interval. The dashed vertical line indicates the pooled ratio of hazard ratios, and the solid vertical line indicates a pooled hazard ratios ratio of 1, which is the null-hypothesis value (ie, no difference between men and women regarding the efficacy of the combination of chemotherapy plus anti–PD-1/PD-L1).