Evidence-appraisal glossary
Surface Under the Cumulative Ranking Curve (SUCRA)
SUCRA is a single number, from zero to one, that summarizes how highly a treatment ranks against all the others in a network meta-analysis. A value near one means the treatment tends to be among the best; near zero, among the worst.
Also called: SUCRA, treatment ranking metric.
A network meta-analysis can rank many treatments at once, but rankings are uncertain because each estimate carries its own imprecision. SUCRA collapses a treatment's whole ranking distribution into one figure, making league tables easier to read. The caution is that a treatment can top the SUCRA ranking while barely differing from its rivals or resting on sparse, low-certainty evidence, so ranks should always be read alongside the actual effect sizes and their intervals, never on their own.
This is a plain-language methodology definition for reading research. It is general education, not medical advice.