Norton 1996.

Methods	Parallel randomised controlled trial Setting: 1 university hospital and one district general hospital in UK Sample size: not reported
Participants	30 patients: 11 male, 19 female; mean age 77 Inclusion criteria: acute cerebrovascular accident with persisting dysphagia for eight or more days, in need for sedation and prolonged mechanical ventilation. Exclusion criteria: patients with a previous history of gastrointestinal disease which would preclude siting a gastrostomy tube or who were unfit for upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and IV sedation
Interventions	PEG (n = 16): pull technique, Wilson Cook tube 24 FR or 12 FR Fresenius NGT (n = 14): fine bore tube Flocare 500, inserted by a senior nurse
Outcomes	Mortality Treatment failure Adverse events Pneumonia Amount of feed administered Change in nutritional status Length of hospital stay
Notes	Follow‐up: six weeks for main outcomes For continuous data, results were not available for all patients
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not reported
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Low risk	Sealed envelopes
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Not possible for this type of intervention
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Not explicitly stated by the study investigators
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Flow of patients was clearly reported
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	Relevant outcomes were analysed
Other bias	Low risk	None suspected