Table 1. Search strategy and identification of publications.
| Database | MeSH terms | Search strategy | Limits | Number of publications identified for systematic review | Number of RCT reports/ post-trial cohort studies |
| MEDLINE | “HPV” map-term and “papillomavirus infections” or “human papillomavirus* or HPV” non map-term, “Cervarix” map-term and “papillomavirus vaccines” or “bivalent L1 virus-like particle vaccine* or Cervarix” non map-term, “Gardasil” map-term and “papillomavirus vaccines” or “quadrivalent L1 virus-like particle vaccine* or Gardasil” non map-term and “immune response” map-term and “antibody formation” or “immunogenic* or immune response” non map-term. | HPV, immune response & Cervarix terms or HPV, immune response & Gardasil terms | English language, humans, females, Ovid full text*, and RCTs | 22 | 9 |
| Embase | “HPV” map-term or “human papillomavirus* or HPV” non map-term, “Cervarix” map-term or “bivalent L1 virus-like particle vaccine* or Cervarix” non map-term, “Gardasil” map-term or “quadrivalent L1 virus-like particle vaccine* or Gardasil” non map-term and “immune response” map-term or “immunogenic* or immune response” non map-term | HPV, immune response & Cervarix terms or HPV, immune response & Gardasil terms | English language, humans, females, Ovid full text*, and RCTs | 6 | 3 |
| Web of Science | “human papillomavirus* or HPV”, “immunogenic* or immune response”, “quadrivalent L1 virus-like particle vaccine* Gardasil” and “bivalent L1 virus-like particle vaccine* Cervarix” “mice* or mouse” and “male* or men” | HPV, immune response & Cervarix terms or HPV, immune response & Gardasil terms | English language, humans, females, and RCTs | 26 | 8 |
| PubMed | “HPV Cervarix immune response” and “HPV Gardasil immune response” | Two separate searches | Humans, females, English language, links to free full text*, and RCTs | 12 (6 Cervarix and 6 Gardasil) | 8 (3 Cervarix and 5 Gardasil) |
| Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials | “human papillomavirus”, “immune response” and “Gardasil” or “human papillomavirus”, “immune response” and “Quadrivalent L1 virus-like particle vaccine” “mice” and “male” | Combination of vaccine names in four separate searches | Humans and females | 10 | 10 (2 Cervarix and 8 Gardasil/quadrivalent vaccine) |
| Reference lists | Additional relevant publications were identified through hand search of bibliographies of publications obtained through the MeSH term searches | / | / | 35 | 22 |
*When full text was not imposed as a limitation, no additional RCT reports or post-RCT follow-on cohort studies were eligible for the meta-analysis, identified via abstracts.