Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have long been heralded as the apex of evidence-based medicine [1]. Positioned at the pinnacle of evidence hierarchies; these methodologies promise to synthesize vast bodies of research into actionable clinical insights. By systematically identifying, appraising, and synthesizing all relevant studies on a specific question, they overcome the limitations of individual studies—small sample sizes, conflicting results, and publication bias. The Cochrane Collaboration, founded in 1993, institutionalized these methods as the cornerstone of clinical decision-making [2].
