Muro 2016.

Methods	Randomised, within‐patient study (left, right) One centre in Tokyo Period of inclusion: August 2010 to November 2012
Participants	Inclusion criteria Any phototherapy or systemic therapy begun before treatment would be continued without any change to the dosage regimen Exclusion criteria Had received phototherapy, ciclosporin, etretinate, methotrexate, oral corticosteroids, topical vitamin D3, or a topical corticosteroid classified as very strong before the start of the study Baseline data: treatment sites were randomised to maxacalcitol + betamethasone butyrate propionate ointments or betamethasone butyrate propionate ointment alone Mean age, years: 53 Male/female: 6/21 Mean duration of disease, years: 9.9 Proportion of participants with psoriatic lesions elsewhere: not specified Severity at baseline on each randomised and treated side not specified Withdrawal: 2 participants did not return to our hospital after the start of the study; 4 did not visit at week 8; 2 changed therapeutic strategy
Interventions	Intervention 1 A: maxacalcitol ointment (Oxarol ointment 25 mg/g; MXA) (27 participants, within‐participant design) Intervention 2 B: no treatment (27 participants, within‐participant design) Co‐interventions: betamethasone butyrate propionate ointment (Antebate ointment 0.05%; BBP). In addition, any phototherapy or systemic therapy begun before treatment would be continued without any change to the dosage regimen Duration of treatment: 8 weeks Seven out of 27 participants received a concomitant therapy during the study: ‐ Methotrexate (n = 2) ‐ Etretinate (n = 2) ‐ Local bath‐PUVA (n = 1) ‐ Etretinate, local bath‐PUVA (n = 1) ‐ Etretinate, methotrexate (n = 1)
Outcomes	No primary or secondary outcome pre‐specified Modified PPPASI (palmoplantar pustular psoriasis area and severity index)
Notes	Funding: not reported
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Quote: "The type of therapy was randomly assigned" Comment: no precision
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Low risk	Quote: "The type of therapy was randomly assigned via the sealed envelope method" Comment: probably done
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Quote: "On one side two topical treatments were applied whereas on the other just one was applied making the blinding impossible " Comment: blinding impossible
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	High risk	Quote: "No double blind" Comment: no blinding was done
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	High risk	Quote: "Twenty one patients were completed" Comment: 21 participants completed the study instead of 29, and study authors did not include 27 in the analysis ‐ only 21
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	Comment: no protocol found to guarantee that all planned outcomes are presented in the results