for the main comparison.

G‐CSF compared with antibiotics for the prevention of infections and improvement of survival in cancer patients receiving myelotoxic chemotherapy
Patient or population: cancer patients receiving myelotoxic chemotherapy Intervention: G‐CSF Comparison: antibiotics
Outcomes	Illustrative comparative risks* (95% CI)		Relative effect (95% CI)	No of Participants (studies)	Quality of the evidence (GRADE)	Comments
	Assumed risk	Corresponding risk
	Antibiotics	G‐CSF
All cause mortality	see comment					not reported
Infection‐related mortality	see comment			40 (1 RCT)	⊕⊝⊝⊝1,2 very low	no patient died of infectious causes during the 18‐week duration of the trial
Quality of life	see comment					not reported
Incidence of febrile neutropenia	318 per 1000	388 per 1000 (169 to 904)	RR 1.22 (0.53 to 2.84)	40 (1 RCT)	⊕⊝⊝⊝1,2 very low
Incidence of severe infections	see comment					not reported
Adverse events	see comment					not reported
*The basis for the assumed risk (e.g. the median control group risk across studies) is provided in footnotes. The corresponding risk (and its 95% confidence interval) is based on the assumed risk in the comparison group and the relative effect of the intervention (and its 95% CI). CI: Confidence interval; RR: Risk Ratio
GRADE Working Group grades of evidence High quality: Further research is very unlikely to change our confidence in the estimate of effect. Moderate quality: Further research is likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and may change the estimate. Low quality: Further research is very likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and is likely to change the estimate. Very low quality: We are very uncertain about the estimate.

¹ due to the low number of very low number of events, the result is highly imprecise (downgraded by 2 points)

² high risk of performance bias (neither patients nor physicians blinded) and detection bias (no intention to treat analysis) (downgraded by 1 point)