Table 1.

Characteristics table

Study name	Intervention	Control	Period of follow‐up (months)	Randomisation	Blinding of participants and healthcare professionals	Blinding of outcome assessors	Missing outcome bias	Selective outcome reporting bias	For‐profit bias
Genesca 1993	Interferon‐alpha	No intervention	12	Unclear	High	Unclear	Low	High	Unclear
Hwang 1994	Interferon‐alpha	No intervention	12	Unclear	High	Unclear	High	Low	High
Lampertico 1994	Interferon‐alpha	No intervention	18	Unclear	High	Unclear	High	High	High
Omata 1991	Interferon‐beta	No intervention	36	Low	High	Unclear	High	High	Unclear
Omata 1994	Interferon‐beta	No intervention	36	Unclear	High	Unclear	Low	High	Unclear
Calleri 1998	Interferon‐beta	No intervention	22.5	Unclear	High	High	Low	Low	Low
Csatary 1998	MTH‐68/B vaccine	No intervention	12	Unclear	High	Unclear	Low	Low	Unclear
Wang 2005	Pegylated interferon‐alpha	No intervention	6	Unclear	Unclear	Unclear	High	High	Unclear
Deterding 2013	Pegylated interferon‐alpha	Pegylated interferon‐alpha plus ribavirin	6	Unclear	High	Low	High	Low	High
Santantonio 2014	Pegylated interferon‐alpha	Pegylated interferon‐alpha plus ribavirin	12	Unclear	High	Unclear	Low	High	High