Table 2.

Effects of interventions sorted by comparison.

Comparison	Trial	Haemostatic effect	Healing	Adverse effects	Costs
1. Epinephrine vs. thrombin	Brezel et al. 1987	+	NS	NS	direct costs in favour of epinephrine
	Carucci et al. 1984	+	no data	NS	probably favouring epinephrine
	Netscher et al. 1996	+	no data	NS	direct costs in favour of epinephrine*
2. Epinephrine vs. control	Carucci et al. 1984	+	no data	NS	probably favouring control*
	Gacto et al. 2008	+	favouring epinephrine	NS	no data
	Netscher et al. 1996	+	no data	NS	probably favouring control*
	Barret et al. 1999	NS	NS	NS	no data
3. Fibrin sealant vs. control	Nervi et al. 2001	+	no data	no data	no data
	Greenhalgh et al. 1999	+/NS/NS**	NS	NS	no data
4. Fibrin sealant vs. thrombin	Drake et al. 2003	+	NS	NS	no data
5. Thrombin vs. control	Carucci et al. 1984	+	no data	NS	probably favouring control*
	Netscher et al. 1996	+	no data	NS	probably favouring control*
6. Alginate dressing vs. fine mesh gauze	Steenfos et al. 1998	+	NS	NS	no data

+ = significantly in favour of the former agent;

- = significantly in favour of the latter agent;

NS = not significant.

* Only direct costs per product or per patient were given, so no conclusion on overall costs per treatment could be conducted.

** Blood loss was estimated in three different ways.