Moloney 1983.

Study characteristics
Methods	RCT. Parallel design with 2 treatment arms. Duration: unclear, intervention given for 3 weeks, survival reported to 1 year; outcomes reported at different time points. Location: Ireland.
Participants	Inclusion criteria: consecutive adults with cancer (various sites) undergoing radiotherapy. Exclusion criteria: clinically poor and considered unethical to withhold adjunctive feeding. Number randomised: 84 participants (intervention group, n = 42; control group, n = 42). Attrition: no information. Gender split: 50 males and 34 females. Age: mean intervention group 63 years; control group 55 years. Nutritional status: no information given.
Interventions	Intervention: participants received dietary advice plus ONS if required in the form of dietary counselling and supplements. Control: participants received no dietary advice and no ONS in the form of no advice.
Outcomes	Survival*, energy intake*, macronutrient and micronutrient intake.
Publication details	Language: English. Funding: not declared. Publication status: peer‐reviewed journal.
Notes	Data for survival given at 9 months for dietary advice and supplement group and at 11 months for no advice group.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Described as randomised, but method not stated.
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Method not stated.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) Clinical outcomes	Low risk	The study was assumed to be unblinded. However, this is unlikely to influence clinical outcomes.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) Functional outcomes	Unclear risk	Not measured.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) Nutritional outcomes	High risk	The study was unblinded. Nutritional outcomes could have been influenced by lack of blinding.
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Not blinded and likely that researchers and participants were aware of group allocation as this was a nutritional intervention. It is possible that assessment of some outcomes was influenced by lack of blinding
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Judged to be unclear because low risk for clinical outcomes and high risk for functional and nutritional outcomes.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	No information on attrition.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	No study protocol identified, thus unable to judge whether all planned outcomes were reported. Mortality data obtained from the paper. Data on change in energy intake is expressed as mean (SD) at baseline and end of intervention, therefore change scores were calculated and SDs imputed. No response received from author.
Other bias	Unclear risk	Baseline variables given, treatment group were older.