Park 1994.

Methods	Study design: parallel RCT Time frame: not reported, but before 1994 Follow‐up period: 1 year (6 years for 68 patients) Primary endpoint: patient and graft survival rates
Participants	Country: Korea Setting: multicentre (number of centres not reported) First living kidney transplant; 18 to 65 years Number (randomised): withdrawal group (141); maintenance group (153) Mean age ± SD (years): not reported Sex (% female): not reported Exclusion criteria: SCr > 1.5 mg/dL 3 months after transplantation; active hepatitis; HBsAG seropositivity
Interventions	Treatment group Steroid withdrawal 3 months after transplantation Control group Steroid maintenance Baseline immunosuppression CsA: day 0 to 2: 3 mg/kg IV; day 3: 10 mg/kg PO; reduced to 3 to 5 mg/kg/d adjusted to trough levels: month 1 to 3: 200 to 400 ng/mL; thereafter: 100 to 200 ng/mL Steroids IV methylprednisone: day 0: 1000 mg; day 1: 200 mg; reduced to 60 mg by day 4 Oral prednisone: day 5: 30 mg/d; reduced to 10 mg/d by end of month 3 Withdrawal group: prednisone reduced by 2.5 mg every 2 weeks until complete withdrawal 6 to 8 weeks after randomisation
Outcomes	Mortality Graft loss Acute rejection NODAT Infection SCr (mg/dL) CrCl (mL/min)
Notes	Did not report number screened for eligibility; randomised (294); analysed in 1998 (68) Number of patients discontinued study At 1 year 18 patients withdrawn from study because of regimen failure, death, graft loss, compliance, adverse events
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Stated 'randomised' but no further information provided.
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not reported
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	High risk	Open‐label
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Open‐label
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Outcomes are objective hard endpoints
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Number of patients in which the outcome was measured are not reported, survival only reported as rates; unclear if ITT analysis performed
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	Primary outcomes for this review reported
Other bias	Unclear risk	Funding source not reported There's a substantial difference between number of participants in first published report (1994) (294) and second report (1998) (68) which is not explained