Evidence-appraisal glossary
Individual participant data meta-analysis
An individual participant data meta-analysis gathers the raw, person-level data from each included study and reanalyzes it centrally, instead of pooling the summary results each study published. This allows consistent analyses and a reliable look at how effects vary by patient characteristics.
Also called: IPD meta-analysis, individual patient data meta-analysis.
It is often treated as a gold standard because it enables uniform outcome definitions, proper time-to-event analysis, and trustworthy subgroup and interaction analyses across studies. The caveat is practical: obtaining raw data is slow and frequently incomplete, and if the studies willing to share differ systematically from those that do not, availability bias can distort the result.
This is a plain-language methodology definition for reading research. It is general education, not medical advice.