Background: Network meta-analysis (NMA), in the context of a systematic review, is a meta-analysis in which multiple treatments (that is, three or more) are being compared using both direct comparisons of interventions within randomized controlled trials and indirect comparisons across trials based on a common comparator. NMA holds promise to provide evidence on comparative effectiveness that is valuable for decision-making, in the context of Health Technology Assessments (HTAs), because it allows comparisons of interventions that may not have been directly compared in head-to-head trials. Moreover, in many cases the probability of future head-to-head trials is very low because costs or futility reasons considered by research sponsors.

Objectives: To describe the proportion of HTAs comparing interventions without head-to-head trials, and from them how many searched, identified relevant NMA, and eventually if they were considered in HTAs’ conclusion.

Methods: We analysed all HTAs comparing interventions, published in the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) database during the year 2012. Out of this sample we will evaluate the proportion of HTAs without head-to-head trials for its main question, the proportion of HTA searching and including NMA. We will search in Pubmed, Embase, and CENTRAL the existence of NMA for each relevant topic. From HTAs using NMA we will evaluate the match of their conclusions about the comparisons (Fig. 1).

Results: 951 HTAs were published in 2012 in CRD. The results will be presented at the Colloquium.