Takeshita 2009

Methods	Randomised trial comparing the use of a late‐evening snack of a branched‐chain amino acid‐enriched supplement to no supplement in patients undergoing transarterial chemoembolization for hepatocellular carcinoma.
Participants	Patients undergoing transarterial chemoembolisation for hepatocellular carcinoma.
Interventions	Experimental group received a commercial supplement (Aminoleban EN ‐ 878.64 kJ energy in 50 gram pack) ingested at night (10 PM) beginning one day before the procedure and lasting for two weeks afterward. The control group did not receive any nutrition therapy.
Outcomes	Mortality, duration of hospitalization (for the chemoembolization procedure), lab tests, adverse events, body mass index.
Category of study	Supplements/Medical.
Sample size calculation	None reported.
Full paper or abstract only	Full paper.
Notes	Request for further information sent via e‐mail on September 18, 2011 (ichikawa@net.nagasaki‐u.ac.jp and Shige‐ygc@umin.ac.jp). No response has been received as of March 20, 2012.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	"patients were randomly placed into 2 groups".
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No details provided.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	High risk	No placebo solution provided.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	No dropouts.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	High risk	Although explicitly stated to be a secondary outcome, no hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence rates provided. No morbidity data reported.
Other bias	Unclear risk	Differences in white and red blood cell, platelet counts and total serum cholesterol between the two groups; funding not reported.
Intent to treat analysis	Low risk	All patients accounted for.
Baseline imbalance?	High risk	Controls had more abnormal hemograms and other laboratory tests.
Early stopping?	Unclear risk	No sample size calculation presented and no explanation regarding why trial stopped when it was.