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. 2026 Sep 10;13:1853734. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2026.1853734

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© 2026 Zhang, Alió del Barrio, Bao and Alió.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Flow diagram of the literature identification and selection process for this structured narrative review. A total of 537 records were identified through PubMed. After screening and eligibility assessment, 103 full-text articles were evaluated. Thirteen articles were excluded because of mixed ectasia populations, insufficient relevant outcomes, or language restrictions. Ninety studies were ultimately included in the narrative synthesis. — Flow diagram of literature identification and selection for this structured narrative review.