Table 5.

Summary of Findings for PICO Question 5a^a

SFED compared to placebo for the management of EoE
Outcomes	No. of participants (studies), follow-up62–69	Certainty of the evidence (GRADE)	Relative effect, RR (95% CI)	Anticipated absolute effects
				Risk with placebo	Risk difference with SFED
Failure to achieve histologic remission (proportion) assessed with: esophageal eosinophils <5/hpf follow-up: mean 6 wk	633 (9 observational studies)b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j	⊕⊕◯◯ LOWk	0.38 (0.32–0.43)	880 per 1000	550 fewer per 1000 (600 fewer to 500 fewer)

Abbreviation: SFED, 6-food elimination diet.

^aThe risk in the intervention group (and its 95% CI) is based on the assumed risk in the comparison group and the relative effect of the intervention (and its 95% CI).

^bUsed <10 eos/hpf for definition of remission. Studies with a cutoff of <15 eos/hpf will likely underestimate the response rate within the pooled results and therefore strengthen the assumed estimate of effect (Kagalwalla et al⁶²).

^cMeasured SF-36 (Gonsalves et al⁶³).

^d15 of 26 subjects did SFED + foods with + SPT/APT (Henderson et al⁶⁴).

^eAlso eliminated rice + corn (Lucendo et al⁶⁴).

^fAlso eliminated foods with + SPT/APT (Colson et al⁶⁵).

^gExcluded subjects with + IgE tests before enrollment. The response rate is lower and therefore likely underestimates the effect estimate in the pooled results (Rodriguez-Sanchez et al⁶⁶).

^hOnly subjects with <5 eos/hpf (“complete” remission) (Philpott et al⁶⁷).

ⁱCombined clinical and histopathologic remission; estimated for SFED based on 2-, 4-, 6-FED step-up protocol (Molina-Infante et al⁶⁷).

^jDid not include Wolf 2014 in analysis to avoid duplicate subjects (Reed et al⁶⁸).

^kWhen compared to historical controls, a very large effect estimate is likely. However, the evidence certainty was not rated up due to concerns of possible residual confounding and/or indirectness.