Table 4.
Certainty of Evidence of sham intervention for renal denervation compared to baseline values for adult patients with hypertension
| Certainty assessment | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Participants (studies) |
Risk of bias | Inconsistency | Indirectness | Imprecision | Publication bias | Overall certainty of evidence |
| Ambulatory Systolic Blood Pressure | ||||||
|
637 (9 Pre-post data RCTs) |
seriousa | seriousb | not serious | not serious | publication bias strongly suspectedc |
Very low |
| Ambulatory Diastolic Blood Pressure | ||||||
|
637 (9 Pre-post data RCTs) |
seriousa | seriousd | not serious | not serious | none |
Low |
| Office Systolic Blood Pressure | ||||||
|
570 (7 Pre-post data RCTs) |
seriousa | seriouse | not serious | not serious | none |
Low |
| Office Diastolic Blood Pressure | ||||||
|
570 (7 Pre-post data RCTs) |
seriousa | not serious | not serious | not serious | none |
Low |
RCTs: randomized clinical trials
a. Five trials were considered as low risk of bias, while 3 trials had some concerns regarding outcome measurement of the outcome since the trial funder was in charge of data collection and management. 1 trial was considered to have a high risk of bias, due to missing outcome data that may be dependent on its true value
b. Heterogeneity (i2) = 51.2%; c. Publication bias was assessed via funnel plot asymmetry, which was statistically significant (P = 0.0016); d. Heterogeneity (i2) = 43.41%;
e. Heterogeneity (i2) = 49.8%;