5.

Trial Sequential Analysis of length of hospital stay. DARIS = Pc 50.29%; RRR 20%; alpha 1.6%; beta 20 %; diversity 49%.

The horizontal green lines illustrate the conventional level of statistical significance, which was intersected from the first trial. In the analysis with 515 patients randomised, we had sufficient evidence to accept that laparoscopic‐endoscopic rendezvous resulted in a shorter hospital stay than preoperative endoscopic sphincterotomy. We used Trial Sequential Analysis software to conduct the analysis and to generate the figure.

Legend: square symbol: Z‐score for single study; diamond symbol: trial sequential monitoring boundary for benefit score for single study.

Abbreviations: DARIS: diversity‐adjusted required information size; Pc: control group proportion observed in the trials; RRR = a relative risk reduction.