Table 2.
Summary of the quality assessment of included studies using an adapted version of the Newcastle-Ottawa scale for assessing the quality of nonrandomised studies
| First author, year of publication | Representativeness of sample (2 points) | Loss to follow-up of participants (1 point) | Information about exposure (1 point) | Measurement of outcome (2 points) | Total score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foltz, 1985 [32] | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5/6 |
| Heasman, 1985 [33] | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5/6 |
| Huntington, 1985 [34] | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3/6 |
| Goodwin, 1988 [35] | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5/6 |
| Demark-Wahnefried, 1997 [13] | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3/6 |
| Aslani, 1999 [36] | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4/6 |
| Goodwin, 1999 [37] | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4/6 |
| Kutynec, 1999 [38] | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5/6 |
| Demark-Wahnefried, 2001 [12] | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 5/6 |
| McInnes, 2001 [1] | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3/6 |
| Del Rio, 2002 [39] | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3/6 |
| Lankester, 2002 [40] | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3/6 |
| Freedman, 2004 [7] | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4/6 |
| Harvie, 2004 [18] | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4/6 |
| Ingram, 2004 [6] | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6/6 |
| Kumar, 2004 [41] | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4/6 |
| Campbell, 2007 [19] | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4/6 |
| Courneya, 2007 [27] | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4/6 |
| Makari-Judson, 2007 [20] | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4/6 |
| Heideman, 2009 [8] | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4/6 |
| Biglia, 2010 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2/6 |
| Tredan, 2010 [44] | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3/6 |
| Basaran, 2011 [45] | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2/6 |
| Jeon, 2014 [46] | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4/6 |
| Winkels, 2014 [47] | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5/6 |
(1) Representativeness of sample (2 points: extensive information on number of people eligible and included, 1 point: extensive information about recruitment, but not about number of people eligible and included, 0 points: only brief information about recruitment. (2) Loss to follow-up of participants (1 point: information about number lost to follow-up; 0 points: no information about number lost to follow-up). (3) information about exposure (1 point: results are given separate for different chemotherapy regimens, 0 points: results are not separated out for chemotherapy regimens). (4) assessment of the outcome (2 points: measurement protocol for body weight, 1 point: body weight information for chart review or measurement without protocol, 0 points: no information on how body weight was assessed). The rating system scores studies from 0 (low quality) to 6 points (high quality)