Table 1.

Results of the methodological quality assessment for all included randomized controlled trials.^a

	Randomized Controlled Trial
Item	Bottoni4 (2006)	Fabbriciani16 (2004)	Sperber30 (2001)	Jorgensen51 (1999)
A. Was the treatment allocation randomized and concealed?	+	+	+	−
B. Was the outcome assessor blinded to the intervention?	+	−	−	+
C. Were the groups similar at baseline?	+	+	+	+
D. If not, were adjustments made in the analysis for differences of prognostic indicators at baseline and/or for confounding variables?	NA	NA	NA	NA
E. Was a sufficient proportion (≥80%) of included patients available for the full length of follow-up?	+	+	+	+
F. If not, was selective loss to follow-up excluded?	NA	NA	NA	NA
G. Was an intention-to-treat analysis included?	−	−	−	−
H. Were the interventions clearly defined?	+	+	+	+
I. Were the inclusion and exclusion criteria for study entry clearly defined?	+	+	+	+
J. Were the outcome measures suitable to measure clinically relevant differences in treatment effects?	+	+	+	+
K. Was the follow-up duration adequate to measure clinical differences between treatment modalities (≥1 year)?	+	+	+	+
Quality score (%)b	8 (88)	7 (77)	7 (77)	7 (77)

^a+, positive or yes; −, negative or no; NA, not applicable.

^bMinimum, 0; maximum, 9.