Study	Reason for exclusion
Bassaw 2014	Randomisation was alternate which is subject to bias.
Benagiano 1992	The relevant outcome in the publication, post‐operative complications, was given as a score rather than a proportion as contained in the table of comparisons. Contact was attempted with the principal author for extra information but no reply was received.
Bizzari 2015	Prospective study but not randomised.
Bondi 2016	Retrospective analysis of a prospectively collected database.
Coddington 2009	Objectives of trial to measure other outcomes not included in the review.
De Falco 2006	Intervention was not relevant to this review.
Di Lieto 2005	Trial of add‐back therapy which is covered in another Cochrane Review (Moroni 2015).
Donnez 2014	Intervention was given long term and women participants were trying to avoid surgery.
Elzaher 2013	Participants had either fibroids or adenomyosis and no data provided for only women with fibroids.
Ferrero 2016a	Retrospective analysis of a prospectively collected database.
Ferrero 2016b	Prospective study but not randomised.
Hasan 2014	Intervention was misoprostol which is covered in another Cochrane Review (Kongnyuy 2014).
Hutsikava 2016	No indication whether the study was randomised ‐ unequal numbers in the two groups.
Leone Roberti Maggiore 2014	Not an RCT.
Mizutani 2005	The outcome of this study was not relevant to this review.
Nakano 1998	Appeared to be a dose finding study of different types of GnRHa without a control arm.
Palomba 2001	Trial of add‐back therapy which is covered in another Cochrane Review (Moroni 2015).
Parsanezhad 2010	Wrong participants ‐ no mention of surgery after interventions.
Russo 1998	Not RCT ‐ participants could chose their treatment.
Rutgers 1995	The outcomes measured in the trial were not relevant to the review.
Simon 2016	RCT, but treatment was not given preoperatively ‐ no indication whether the participants went on to have surgery.
Tabatabai 2015	Intervention was misoprostol which is covered in another Cochrane Review (Kongnyuy 2014).
Triolo 2006	Participants had either endometrial polyps, submucous myoma or septate uterus and results were reported for the whole group.
Weeks 2000	The women in this study did not have fibroids.
Ylikorkala 1995	The study author was contacted for extra information not contained in the publication but no reply was received. The study population consisted of women with fibroids and women with menometrorrhagia and pelvic pain and data were not provided separately for the women with fibroids.

GnRHa: gonadotropin‐hormone releasing analogues; RCT: randomised controlled trial