Figure 3
Funnel plot asymmetry suggesting the presence of publication bias and an overestimation of the overall effect size of NOX2 in stroke.
The Y-axis represents precision; the X-axis effect size of individual studies. The funnel plot is based on the fact that precision in estimating the underlying treatment effect will increase as the sample size of component studies increases. Using the trim and fill analyses the intervention effect is adjusted for possible missing studies (filled red symbols) amongst published data (open symbols). The asymmetry suggests that studies showing larger infarcts in NOX2 KO mice in experimental stroke are missing. These would otherwise shift the mean (open diamond) towards a smaller or no overall effect of NOX2 (closed diamond).
