Table 2.

Quality assessment of clinical study

Study	A clearly stated aim	Inclusion of consecutive patients	Prospective collection of data	Endpoints appropriate to the aim of the study	Unbiased assessment of the study endpoint	Follow-up period appropriate to the aim of the study	Loss to follow up less than 5%	Prospective calculation of the study size
[53]	2	2	2	2	0	0	2	2
Additional criteria in the case of comparative study
	An adequate control group	Contemporary groups	Baseline equivalence of groups	Adequate statistical analyses	Score	Quality
	2	2	0	2	18/24	HIGH