NMAstudio: a fully interactive web-application for producing and visualizing network meta-analyses

Several software tools have been developed in the last years for network meta-analysis (NMA) but presentation and interpretation of findings from large networks of interventions remain challenging. We developed a novel online tool, called ‘NMAstudio’, for facilitating the production and visualization of key NMA outputs in a fully interactive environment. NMAstudio is a Python web-application that provides a direct connection between a customizable network plot and all NMA outputs. The user interacts with the network by clicking one or more nodes-treatments or edges-comparisons. Based on their selection, different outputs and information are displayed: (a) boxplots of effect modifiers assisting the evaluation of transitivity; (b) pairwise or NMA forest plots and bi-dimensional plots if two outcomes are given; (c) league tables coloured by risk of bias or confidence ratings from the CINeMA framework; (d) incoherence tests; (e) comparison-adjusted funnel plots; (f) ranking plots; (g) evolution of the network over time. Pop-up windows with extra information are enabled. Analyses are performed in R using ‘netmeta’ and results are transformed to interactive and downloadable visualizations using reactive Python libraries such as ‘Plotly’ and ‘Dash’. A network of 20 drugs for chronic plaque psoriasis is used to demonstrate NMAstudio in practice. In summary, our application provides a truly interactive and user-friendly tool to display, enhance and communicate the NMA findings.