Fig. 2

Assessment of consistency in meta-analyses. a Log (HR) of largest study versus log (HR) of random effects estimates for each meta-analysis. The Y-axis labelled “log (HR) Largest Study” represents the log of the HR of the largest component study. The X-axis labelled “log (HR) Random Effects” represents the log of the HR of the random effects estimate calculated in each meta-analysis. b Random effects estimates versus inverse variance. The Y-axis labelled “Random Effects Estimates Hazard Ratio” represents the HR of random effects estimate for each meta-analysis. The X-axis labelled “Inverse Variance” represents the inverse of the variance for each meta-analysis. c, d Box plots of random effects HR estimates for each meta-analysis by cancer site and outcome. The Y-axis labelled “HR” details the effect size for each meta-analysis describing an association between NLR or TAN and cancer prognosis for each site grouping. The X-axis labelled “Site” in c represents each site group meta-analyses have been sorted into. The composite endpoints subgroup is defined as a grouping of cancer diagnosis unrelated to site, stage or treatment. The X-axis labelled “Outcome” in d represents the prognostic outcome assessed in each meta-analysis. The outlier of HR = 14 for NLR and OS in rectal cancer has been excluded from these figures