Study	Reason for exclusion
Aaron 2005	Intervention is not a macrolide antibiotic.
Anstead 1999	Not a randomised controlled trial. An open study.
Anstead 2001	Small RCT presented in abstract form only. Not able to assess study design, randomisation process or results. Authors contacted for more details (2002).
Baumann 2000	Not a randomised controlled trial. An open prospective study.
Beringer 2005	Open label pharmacokinetic study on adults, results suggest considerable intracellular accumulation of azithromycin and no dose adjustment required for CF patients who are pancreatic insufficient.
Cipolli 2001	Randomised but open label short‐term (5 days) pharmacokinetic study of 2 dosing regimens (500 versus 1000 mg azithromycin a day) on adult patients.
Dionyssopoulou 2005	Authors report randomised trial of roxithromycin in CF patients in abstract form. No details of study design, randomisation process or whether placebo used. Authors contacted for further details in 2005.
Dogru 2004	Small randomised cross‐over study of clarithromycin versus placebo. Results presented in abstract form; not able to assess study design design, randomisation process or results. Authors contacted for further details (2004 and 2006).
Frederiksen 2001	Authors report a randomised cross‐over study of clarithromycin (500 bd) versus placebo in abstract form. Not able to assess study design, randomisation process or results from abstract. Large number of drop outs from study (20/41) and lack of positive findings probably influenced the decision not to submit for publication. Authors contacted and kindly provided protocol, suggesting adequate sequence generation, allocation and blinding, however it was not possible to analyse the data provided as it was not in a manner that permits analysis (2001).
Jaffe 1998	Not a randomised controlled trial. Open study.
Jensen 2005	Not a randomised controlled trial.
Kessaris 2003	Authors present results in abstract form only, describing small (n = 12) RCT of clarithromycin versus placebo for six months. Not able to assess randomisation process or results from the abstract. Authors contacted for further information and results (2006).
Ordonez 2001	Not randomised controlled trial. A single‐blinded prospective pilot study.
Pirzada 1999	Retrospective case control study, no randomisation.
Pukhalsky 2001	Not a randomised controlled trial.
Radionovitch 2005	Authors confirm not randomised. Treatments allocated in open manner.
Rubin 2003	Study described as an RCT, examining the impact of clarithromycin on airway ion transport. Nasal PD data published, suggesting no impact of clarithromycin on airway ion transport.
Shmarina 2004	Study comparing clarithromycin to nimesulide not to placebo, another antibiotic class, another macrolide or the same macrolide at a different dose.
Sriram 2003	Study presented in abstract form. Authors approached and have kindly provided protocol which suggests adequate randomisation processes. No aggregate data available, it has not been possible to analyse the limited IPD provided due to format.

bd: twice daily 
 CF: cystic fibrosis 
 IPD: individual patient data 
 PD: potential difference 
 RCT: randomised controlled trial