Term for a meta-analysis without a literature review I'm in the midst of revising a manuscript that compares the results of a sequence of experiments. These experiments, most of whose results have already been published elsewhere, have some components that were shared and some that were unique to each experiment. This manuscript focuses on the shared aspects, comparing across the different experiments in order to draw conclusions about precision, reproducibility, and sources of error.
Since we're performing a statistical analysis over the findings of multiple studies, we have described this as a &quot;meta-analysis.&quot;  The handling editor, however, has requested that we change the title, because the use of that term is now dominated by systematic reviews:

Please consider amending the title to more accurately reflect the nature of the work. We note that 'meta-analysis' typically refers to an analysis following a systematic review and utilising a specific framework.

I'm having a hard time, however, figuring out any other word than &quot;meta-analysis&quot; to describe an analysis over multiple studies.
Is there any good word besides &quot;meta-analysis&quot; to describe a meta-analysis that doesn't incorporate a systematic literature review?
For a wide study that attempts to distill &quot;truth&quot; out of &quot;evidence&quot;, meta-analysis would be the correct term.
But for a narrower study that compares a small number of studies and attempts to improve the evidence for an answer to the underlying question or at least improve the search for better evidence, I think &quot;comparative analysis&quot; would probably be better - especially if an editor is uncomfortable.
But you might also think about qualifying the term depending on your actual goal in the paper.