Table 1.

Suggested new viewpoints for meta-analyses in radiation oncology.

	Conventional Viewpoints	New Viewpoints for Radiation Oncology
Utility of meta-analysis	To build the highest level of evidence and more robust conclusions	To provide practical information serving clinical decisions for intractable diseases
Issues of heterogeneity	Avoid if possible, to draw firm and undisputed conclusions	Heterogeneity is inevitable and reflects real-life clinical situations Dispersion of effects sizes are subjects of clinical discussion
Analysis of observational studies	Prefer to analyze only RCTs, reducing biases and heterogeneity among studies	Important to fill the gaps between RCT results and clinical decisions Efforts to select high-quality studies and reduce biases are encouraged

RCT, randomized controlled trial.