This reprint is made possible by an educational grant from Zimmer. COPYRIGHT © 2002 BY THE JOURNAL OF BONE AND JOINT SURGERY, INCORPORATED Current Concepts Review User’s Guide to the Orthopaedic Literature: How to Use a Systematic Literature Review

➤ Investigators who perform a systematic review address a focused clinical question, conduct a thorough search of the literature, apply inclusion and exclusion criteria to each potentially eligible study, critically appraise the rel-evant studies, conduct sensitivity analyses, and synthesize the information to draw conclusions relevant to pa-tient care or additional study. ➤ A meta-analysis is a quantitative (or statistical) pooling of results across eligible studies with the aim of increas-ing the precision of the final estimates by increasing the sample size. ➤ The current increase in the number of small randomized trials in orthopaedic surgery provides a strong argu-ment in favor of meta-analysis; however, the quality of the primary studies included ultimately reflects the quality of the pooled data from a meta-analysis. The conduct and publication of systematic reviews of the ortho-paedic literature, which often include statistical pooling or meta-analysis, are becoming more common. This article is the third in a series of guides evaluating the validity of the surgical literature and its application to clinical practice. It provides a set of criteria for optimally interpreting systematic literature re