Rigopoulos 2004.

Methods	Study type: individual RCT Randomisation method: computer‐based randomisation Blinding: no (open‐label) Intention‐to‐treat analysis used: yes
Participants	Inclusion criteria of the trial Seborrhoeic dermatitis Exclusion criteria of the trial Other dermatoses of face Topical treatments during the 6 months prior to entry in the study Pregnancy or lactation Number of randomised participants: 20 in total (pimecrolimus N = 11, betamethasone N = 9) Number of dropouts: 0 Sex: 16 males, 4 females Mean age (range): pimecrolimus arm = 36.4 (24 to 45) years, betamethasone arm = 37.2 (24 to 47) years Country: Greece
Interventions	Treatment Pimecrolimus 1% cream, applied to the face twice daily until symptoms were absent Comparator/s Betamethasone 0.1% cream, applied to the face twice daily until symptoms were absent
Outcomes	Erythema, pruritus, and scaling scores (scale 0 to 3) Clearance and relapse rate
Notes	The participants were instructed to discontinue use of the medicine as soon as symptoms were absent. All participants stopped treatment by day 9 because symptoms had disappeared We could not use erythema, pruritus, and scaling scores in the meta‐analysis because standard deviations or exact P values were not given in the report The location of SeD lesions were not mentioned as inclusion criteria, but other dermatoses of the face were reported as exclusion criteria suggesting that the skin of the face was a site of interest in the trial
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Quote: "Patients were randomly assigned to treatment...using a program that allocated every consecutive group of two patients to one patient in each group. The random numbers were generated by a computer and were assigned to the patients by the investigator's assistant"
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	The randomisation and allocation program allocated every consecutive group of 2 participants to 1 participant in each group, so the assistant would have known the latter participant's group in advance. However, the same assistant enrolled and assigned the treatment of the participants, whereas the investigator was masked
Similarity of the study groups (selection bias)	Low risk	Quote: "The mean baseline score for erythema, pruritus and scaling did not differ significantly between the two treatment groups"
Blinding of participants (performance bias)	High risk	The study was not blinded
Blinding of care providers (performance bias)	Unclear risk	This was not reported
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Quote: "in an attempt to make the assessments investigator masked"
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	None were identified
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	Predefined outcomes were reported
Other bias	Low risk	No other bias was identified