Paller 2005a.

Methods	Randomised controlled trial
Participants	125 children, 1 to 12 years of age, with molluscum contagiosum in 9 outpatient clinics in the USA and Canada were randomised.
Interventions	Imiquimod cream 5% vs vehicle cream daily for 8 weeks
Outcomes	Lesion clearance, lesion counts, time to complete clearance, side effects, 12 weeks after start of treatment
Notes	Funding by pharmaceutical company (3M), unpublished
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	“Subjects were randomly assigned to a treatment arm in blocks of 4 according to a computer‐generated randomizations.” (p.32)
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Low risk	“Subjects/legal parental custodian(s) and investigators were unaware of the study assignment” (p.25) "This was a double‐blind, vehicle‐controlled study. 3M held the master code for the treatment randomizations schedule and supplied the investigators with each subject’s randomizations code as a hidden (tear‐off) disclosure panel on the study cream carton label. The randomizations code for an individual subject was to be broken only in case of an emergency, such as a serious adverse event (SAE)." (p.34)
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Low risk	See allocation concealment.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Low risk	See allocation concealment.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) Short‐term outcomes (up to 3 months)	Low risk	Not applicable: primary analysis by intention‐to‐treat
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) Medium‐ and long‐term outcomes (3‐6 months and longer)	Unclear risk	No long‐term outcomes
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All outcomes seem to have been reported.
Other bias	Low risk	No baseline imbalance, compliance data available, primary analysis by intention‐to‐treat