Tasmuth 2002.

Study characteristics
Methods	Design: cross‐over Duration: cross‐over periods were 4 weeks Assessment: baseline and post‐cross‐over period Country: Finland
Participants	Pain condition: neuropathic pain following breast cancer treatment Population: women with neuropathic pain following treatment of breast cancer Minimum pain intensity: moderate severity (no numerical scale) Inclusion criteria Neuropathic pain after treatment for breast cancer. The pain had to be in the anterior chest wall and/or axilla and/or median upper arm in an area with sensory disturbances. The pain had to be at least moderate in severity. Exclusion criteria Free of relapses or metastases of the breast cancer and free from clinically overt cardiac, renal or hepatic disease Total participants randomised: 15 Age in years (mean, range): 55 (37‐72) Gender: 15/15 were female Pain duration in months (mean, range): 20 (18‐26)
Interventions	Placebo Inert Matched dosing Venlafaxine ≤ 75 mg SNRI Flexible titration to highest possible dose: dose was increased by 18.75 mg every week to the highest tolerable dose or ceiling (75 mg)
Outcomes	The study provided no useable data
Missing data methods	NR
Funding source	Non‐pharmacetucal: financial support was received from the Helsinki University Central Hospital Research Funds.
Conflicts of interest	NR
Notes
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Hospital pharmacy performed the randomisation using computer‐generated numbers
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	States that hospital pharmacy performed randomisation but not how this was allocated
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	States double‐blind, matched dosing, but no information regarding appearance of study drugs
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Self‐reported outcomes by blinded participants, but unsure of blinding methods
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Low attrition, but not explained fully (i.e. during which period dropout happened) Attrition Total: 2/15 (13.3%) Attrition per arm NR
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	No protocol or trial registration found
Other bias	Low risk	No other sources of bias were identified.