Table 2. Randomisation, blinded outcome assessment, and sample size calculation in systematic reviews of animal studies.

Disease Modeled	Year of Publication	Number of Publications	Randomisation, n (%)	Blinded Outcome Assessment, n (%)	A Priori Sample Size Calculation, n (%)
Heart failure [24]	2003	9	6 (67)	9 (100)	0 (0)
Emergency medicine [33]	2003	290	94 (32)	31 (11)	N/A
Ischemic stroke [19]	2005	45	19 (42)	18 (40)	0 (0)
Ischemic stroke [49]	2005	73	17 (23)	9 (12)	N/A
Ischemic stroke [50]	2005	25	8 (32)	1 (4)	N/A
Ischemic stroke [51]	2006	27	2 (7)	1 (4)	N/A
Traumatic brain injury [2]	2007	17	2 (12)	3 (18)	N/A
Hemorrhage in surgery [2]	2007	8	3 (38)	4 (50)	N/A
Neonatal RDS [2]	2007	56	14 (25)	3 (5)	N/A
Osteoporosis [2]	2007	16	5 (31)	0 (0)	N/A
Ischemic stroke [16] a	2007	288	103 (36)	84 (29)	8 (3)
Parkinson's disease [16]	2007	118	14 (12)	18 (15)	0 (0)
Multiple sclerosis [16]	2007	183	4 (2)	20 (11)	0 (0)
ALS [45]	2007	85	21 (25)	21 (25)	1 (1)
Brain injury [52]	2008	18	12 (67)	7 (39)	N/A
Ischemic stroke [25]	2008	9	3 (33)	4 (44)	2 (22)
Ischemic stroke [53]	2009	19	1 (5)	5 (26)	0 (0)

^aSummarises the data of six systematic reviews of treatment strategies for acute ischemic stroke. There is an overlap of 18 publications between references [16] and [19].

ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; N/A, data not available; RDS, respiratory distress syndrome.