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Fig. 1. Literature search and selection of included studies MCF 5 medial canal fibrosis; PICMF 5 postinflammatory medial canal fibrosis. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at www.laryngoscope.com.]

between pretreatment and posttreatment with respect to pooled ABG as outcome measures. If the value of 0 was not within the 95% CI range, the MD was statistically significant at the 5% level ( P < 0.05). In addition, a meta-analysis of proportion was done for ABG improvement and restenosis rate. The program MedCalc 16.4.2 (MedCalc Software bvba, Belgium) lists the proportions (expressed as a percentage), with their 95% CI, found in the individual studies included in the meta-analysis. The pooled proportion with 95% CI is given both for the fixed effects model and the random effects model. Each technique was weighted according to the number of patients treated. Analysis of pooled proportions was performed as appropriate. MedCalc used a Freeman-Tukey transformation to calculate the weighted sum mary proportion under the fixed and random effects model. 11,12 RESULTS Medical University of South Carolina Cohort Demographic Data. A total of 16 patients (21 ears) underwent surgical treatment of PIMCF between 2000 and 2015. The mean age of surgery was 52.9 6 18.8 years, and the majority of patients were female (63%). Only one (6.3%) patient had an underlying

Biostatistics Data were analyzed using GraphPad Prism 6.0 software (GraphPad Software, La Jolla, CA) and SigmaPlot 12.5 (Systat Software, Chicago, IL). Categorical variables are presented as percentages (%), and continuous variables are presented as mean and range or as mean 6 standard deviation. All continu ous variables were assessed for normality using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. If these variables were not normally distributed, other descriptive measurements were calculated. Comparisons of categorical variables were performed using a Fisher exact test or chi-square test. For continuous variables, a one-way analysis of variance with repeated measures was used to compare baseline to short-term to long-term follow-up, and further analyses were performed by using post-hoc multiple comparison procedures (the Duncan method). A value of P < 0.05 was considered indicative of statistical significance. A meta-analysis of selected studies with a continuous mea sure was performed with Cochrane Review Manager Version 5.3 (The Nordic Cochrane Centre, The Cochrane Collaboration, 2011, Copenhagen, Denmark). Both the fixed-effects model and the random-effects model were used in this study, as deter mined by the heterogeneity test or I 2 statistic. For this study, the effect size was calculated using the mean difference (MD) and the corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) for all out comes. The null hypothesis was that there was no difference

Laryngoscope 127: February 2017

Keller et al.: Retrospective Review and Meta-Analysis

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