Table 4.

Methodologic quality assessment of case series and case report

First author	Year	Case report/case series	Selection		Ascertainment				Causality				Reporting		Quality assessment*
			Question 1		Question 2		Question 3		Question 4		Question 5		Question 6
			Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Trehan et al. [48]	2004	Case series	*		*			*	*			*	*		Moderate
Oliveira et al. [46]	2009	Case report	*			*	*			*	*		*		Moderate
Yilmaz et al. [38]	2010	Case report	*		*			*	*		*		*		High
Cafaro et al. [41]	2010	Case series	*		*		*		*			*	*		High
Cafaro et al. [9]	2012	Case report	*		*		*		*		*		*		High
Fornaini [47]	2012	Case series		*	*		*		*			*	*		Moderate
Cafaro et al. [30]	2014	Case series	*		*		*		*		*		*		High
Elshenawy et al. [36]	2015	Case series	*		*		*		*			*	*		High
Derikvand et al. [43]	2015	Case report		*	*		*		*			*	*		Moderate
Liu et al. [45]	2017	Case series		*	*			*	*		*		*		Moderate
Zand et al. [15]	2017	Case series	*		*			*	*			*	*		Moderate
Mutafchieva et al. [40]	2018	Case series	*		*		*		*			*	*		High
Dal Prá et al. [14]	2020	Case report	*		*			*	*		*		*		High

Question 1: Did the patient(s) represent the whole case(s) of the medical center?; Question 2: Was the exposure adequately ascertained?; Question 3: Was the outcome adequately ascertained?; Question 4: Were other alternative causes that may explain the observation ruled out?; Question 5: Was follow-up long enough for outcomes to occur?; Question 6: Is the case(s) described with sufficient details to allow other investigators to replicate the research or to allow practitioners make inferences related to their own practice?