Background: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are still not very common in Japan. Although several Japanese-language books have been published on these methodologies in recent years, practical introductory material that allows user to interactively experience a meta-analysis at first hand is currently not available.

Objectives: To offer a simple software program that provides a practical rather than a theoretical introduction to meta-analytic statistics and its backgrounds.

Program description: Basic Excel sheets were taken as basis for the program and they were customized with Visual Basic.NET. After manual data input, the user can navigate through the program with simple mouse clicks. By selecting or deselecting certain items, the user can assess the consequences of most of the choices commonly involved in meta-analyses. Although meant as an explanatory tool, the numerical and graphical output is extensive and makes the program suitable for actually performing meta-analytical calculations while allowing the user to "stay in touch with the data". The output includes fixed and random effects analyses of various outcome types, standard and cumulative forest plots, funnel plots, heterogeneity plots, and p-value function plots. An introduction to the relevant concepts, both in English and Japanese, can be called upon by clicking on various parts of the output. Meta-analytical output has been verified with output from Review-manager 2.4.2. The program's first public version will be launched at the Cochrane Colloquium and will be made available for download on the Internet as of October 2nd 2004.