Study	Reason for exclusion
Amat‐Santos 2012	Different study design: not an RCT: "depending on the preference of the anaesthesiologist responsible for the case"
Anderson 2005	Different study design: not an RCT: "the lack of randomization is a limitation"
Casalino 2006	Different study design: not an RCT: case series of 144 patients
Chae 1998	Different study design: classified as "no adequate sequence generation" by original review authors
Chakravarthy 2005	Different study design: prospective audit of cases conducted over a 13‐year period
Crescenzi 2009	Different study design: not an RCT: case‐matched, non‐randomized study
Djaiani 2000	No original data
El‐Morsy 2012a	Different study population: children
Jideus 2001	Different study design: classified as not randomized by previous review authors
Joachimsson 1989	Different study design: not an RCT: "two groups of consecutive patients meeting the inclusion criteria were investigated"
Kaunienė 2016	No outcome of interest measured
Kessler 2002	Different study design: not an RCT and different intervention: "use of TEA alone was applied in awake patients with multi‐vessel coronary artery disease who underwent CABG via median sternotomy"
Kessler 2005	Different study design: classified as "no adequate sequence generation" by previous review authors
Kunstyr 2008	Different study population: pulmonary endarterectomy with cardiopulmonary bypass
Kurtoglu 2009	Different intervention: compares general vs epidural anaesthesia for minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass
Lagunilla 2006	Different intervention: "In the post‐operative period, 0.2% ropivacaine with 5 mg/ml fentanyl was used for analgesia in all patients, employing a patient controlled system"
Liang 2012	Different intervention: comparison between epidural anaesthesia perioperatively and postoperatively
Liem 1998	Different study design: not an RCT: case report
Martinez 2012	Different intervention: general anaesthesia compared with epidural anaesthesia or intrathecal morphine for beating heart surgery
Novikov 2011	Different study population: aorto‐femoral bypass
Olivier 2005	Different intervention: comparison of 3 different epidural solutions
Orsolya 2015	Different study population: robot‐assisted laparoscopic urogenital surgery
Ortega 2011	Different intervention: all participants had epidural analgesia with bupivacaine alone or bupivacaine plus morphine
Ovezov 2011	Different intervention: all participants had epidural analgesia
Rao 2016	Different intervention: all participants had epidural anaesthesia
Salman 2012	Different study design: not an RCT: "retrospective study"
Salvi 2004	Different study design: not an RCT: retrospective review of prospectively collected data
Schmidt 2005	Different intervention: all participants had epidural analgesia
Stenger 2013	Different study design: not an RCT: retrospective cohort study of prospectively registered data using population‐based healthcare databases
Stenseth 1993	Different intervention: all participants had epidural analgesia and were randomized to light or deep general anaesthesia
Thorelius 1996	Different study design: not an RCT: classified as "no adequate sequence generation" by previous review authors
Thorelius 1997	Different study design: not an RCT
Toda 2013	Different study design: not an RCT: "in this prospective non‐randomized study"
Turfrey 1997	Different study design: not an RCT: "Using computerised patient medical records, we analysed the frequency of respiratory, neurological, renal, gastrointestinal, haematological and cardiovascular complications in these two groups"
Yashiki 2005	Different intervention: TEA vs general anaesthesia

RCT: randomized controlled trial; TEA: thoracic epidural analgesia.