Meta-analyses have proven particularly valuable for teasing out rare but serious safety problems with drugs.

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We have entered an era of increasingly frequent publication of meta-analyses, some of which identify potential safety signals.

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Meta-analyses of randomised studies and large observational registries show that radial access reduces procedure access site-related major bleeding compared to femoral access.

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Such publication commonly leads to urgent calls to take immediate regulatory action, without acknowledgment of potential pitfalls in the interpretation of data from meta-analyses and pooled analyses, such as those encountered in the tiotropium evaluation.

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Meta-analyses are somewhere in between.

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