  Meta-analysis for diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) has been a standard research
method for synthesizing evidence from diagnostic studies. In DTA meta-analysis,
although publication bias is an important source of bias, no certain methods
similar to the Egger test in univariate meta-analysis have been developed to
detect such bias. However, several recent studies have discussed these methods
in the framework of multivariate meta-analysis, and some generalized Egger
tests have been developed. The R package MVPBT
(https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/MVPBT/) was developed to implement the
generalized Egger tests developed by Noma (2020; Biometrics 76, 1255-1259) for
DTA meta-analysis. Noma's publication bias tests effectively incorporate the
correlation information between multiple outcomes and are expected to improve
the statistical powers. The present paper provides a nontechnical introduction
and practical examples of data analyses of the publication bias tests of DTA
meta-analysis using the MVPBT package.
