Table 1.

Literature review exclusion criteria

Exclusion criteria	Number excluded
Published in 1999 or earlier	2
Studies in non-human animals/in vitro/ex vivo	12
Studies in children/adolescents	15
Does not include long-acting G-CSF	89
Not receiving G-CSF for prophylaxis/treatment of chemotherapy-induced FN during cancer treatment	47
Not trial data, letter to editor, or case study	142
Does not contribute to research question: “In which circumstances is long-acting G-CSF (pegfilgrastim) efficacious for prevention of chemotherapy-induced FN in individuals diagnosed with cancer?”	60
Not phase II–IV RCTs, prospective non-randomized studies, letters to editor or case studies	34
Cannot be accessed	1

The final literature search was performed on 17 November 2015, ahead of the guidance group meeting. To capture all phase II–IV trials with pegfilgrastim reference product, “1999” was selected as a cutoff for relevant publications; publications prior to this date would not be relevant

FN febrile neutropenia, G-CSF granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, RCT randomized controlled trial