Table 1.

GRADE Quality of Evidence of different interventions for induction and maintenance of clinical remission in patients with mild-moderate ulcerative colitis, based on direct meta-analysis and network meta-analysis

	Induction of Remission		Maintenance of Remission
	Direct	Network	Direct	Network
All interventions vs. Placebo
Low-dose mesalamine	Moderate1	Moderate	High	High
Standard-dose mesalamine	High	High	High	High
High-dose mesalamine	High	High	-	Moderate
CIR Budesonide	Low1,2	Moderate	N/A	N/A
Budesonide MMX	Moderate1	Moderate	N/A	N/A
Sulfasalazine	Moderate1	Moderate	Low1,3	Low
Diazo-bonded 5-ASA	Moderate1	Moderate	Low1,3	Moderate
Oral + rectal 5-ASA	-	Moderate	-	Low
All interventions vs. Low-dose mesalamine
Standard-dose mesalamine	High	High	High	High
High-dose mesalamine	High	High	-	Moderate
CIR Budesonide	-	Low4	N/A	N/A
Budesonide MMX		Moderate	N/A	N/A
Sulfasalazine	Modserate1	Low4	Low4	Moderate
Diazo-bonded 5-ASA	-	Low	Moderate1	Low
Oral + rectal 5-ASA	-	Moderate	Low4	Low
All interventions vs. Standard-dose mesalamine
High-dose mesalamine	Moderate1	High	Low4	Low
CIR Budesonide	-	Low4	N/A	N/A
Budesonide MMX	Low1,2	Low	N/A	N/A
Sulfasalazine	Moderate	Moderate	Low4	Low
Diazo-bonded 5-ASA	Low1,3	Low4	-	Low
Oral + rectal 5-ASA	Moderate1		Low1,6	Low
All interventions vs. High-dose mesalamine
CIR Budesonide	Moderate1	Moderate	N/A	N/A
Budesonide MMX	-	Low	N/A	N/A
Sulfasalazine	-	Moderate	-	Low
Diazo-bonded 5-ASA	-	Low	-	-
Oral + rectal 5-ASA	Low4	Moderate	-	Low
All interventions vs. CIR Budesonide
Budesonide MMX	Low1,2	Low	N/A	N/A
Sulfasalazine	-	Low	N/A	N/A
Diazo-bonded 5-ASA	-	Low	N/A	N/A
Oral + rectal 5-ASA	-	Moderate	N/A	N/A
All interventions vs. Budesonide MMX
Sulfasalazine	-	Moderate	N/A	N/A
Diazo-bonded 5-ASA	-	Low4	N/A	N/A
Oral + rectal 5-ASA	-	Low	N/A	N/A
All interventions vs. Sulfasalazine
Diazo-bonded 5-ASA	Moderate1	Moderate	Low1,5	Low
Oral + rectal 5-ASA	Moderate1	Moderate	-	Low
All interventions vs. Diazo-bonded 5-ASA
Oral + rectal 5-ASA	-	Moderate	-	Low

¹Rated down for imprecision

²Risk of bias

³Rated down for inconsistency

⁴Rated down for very serious imprecision

⁵Rated down for indirectness (very limited data on balsalazide which may be the preferred diazo-bonded 5-ASA given higher intolerability with olsalazine due to diarrhea)

⁶Rated down for indirectness (comparator group received low-dose mesalamine, whereas combined mesalamine amount in intervention group exceeded 2g)