Table 1.

Study characteristics of included nonrandomized controlled studies n (%)

Ref.	Design	Diagnosis	Palliative SEMS (n)	Palliative surgery (n)	Matching	Female	Study quality (NOS score)
Law et al[10]	P	a	30	31	1, 2, 3	21 (34.4)	8
Carne et al[11]	R	a	25	19	3	19 (43.2)	4
Johnson et al[12]	M	a	20	18	2, 3	17 (47.2)	6
Tomiki et al[13]	P	a, b, c	18	17	4	15 (42.9)	4
Ptok et al[14]	P	a	40	38	2, 3, 4	34 (44.7)	7
Faragher et al[15]	R	a	29	26	1, 2, 4	22 (40.0)	6
Vemulapalli et al[16]	R	a	53	70	1, 2, 4	49 (41.2)	5
Súarez et al[17]	P	a	45	53	1, 4, 6	31 (31.6)	7
Lee et al[18]	P	a	71	73	1, 2, 6	50 (34.7)	7
Lee et al[19]	R	a	36	52	1, 2, 4	39 (44.3)	6

Study design is prospective (P), retrospective (R), or case-matched (M); diagnosis is colorectal cancer (a), ovarian cancer (b), or disseminated upper gastrointestinal malignancy (c); matching for age (1), sex (2), diagnosis (3), tumor site (4), or American Society of Anesthesiologists score (6); NOS scores of 5 or more indicate high-quality. SEMS: Self-expanding metallic stents.