Table 1. Characteristics of included studies on closed pleural biopsy.

Author [year]	Country/region	Number of centres	Type of study	No. of patients	Inclusion criteria	Q score	TP	FP	FN	TN	No. of complications
Nusair et al. [2002]	Israel	Unicentric	Retrospective	44	Patients with an exudative pleural effusion with no accompanying pleural or subpleural thickening ormass	5	13	0	10	19	3
Al-Shimemeri et al. [2003]	Saudi Arabia	Unicentric	Retrospective	110	Patients with an exudative pleural effusion	6	54	0	32	24	4
Maskell et al. [2003]	UK	Unicentric	RCT	25	Patients with cytologically negative suspected malignant pleural effusions	7	15	0	9	1	1
Botana-Rial et al. [2013]	Spain	Unicentric	Prospective	67	Patients with an exudative pleural effusion	4	48	0	6	13	1
Jakubec et al. [2014]	Olomouc	Unicentric	Prospective	222	Patients with pleural effusion and cytologic examination of pleural fluid was negative	7	99	0	58	65	22
Devkota et al. [2014]	Nepal	Unicentric	Prospective	47	Patients with an exudative pleural effusion	6	28	0	3	16	–
Maturu et al. [2015]	India	Unicentric	Retrospective	84	Patients with exudative pleural effusions and remain undiagnosed after thoracentesis	7	63	0	13	8	7
Báez-Saldaña et al. [2017]	México	Unicentric	Prospective	863	Diagnosing malignancy in patients with pleural effusion	5	450	5	137	271	38
Zuberi et al. [2016]	Pakistan	Multicentric	Prospective	94	Patients with an exudative pleural effusion	7	74	0	2	20	–
Rajawat et al. [2017]	India	Unicentric	Retrospective	191	Patients with exudative lymphocytic pleural effusion	4	123	0	13	55	–

TP, true positive; FP, false positive; FN, false negative; TN, true negative; RCT, randomized controlled trial.