Table 2.

Quality analysis of animal studies using ARRIVE guidelines [41] adapted for nerve regeneration treated with PHB scaffolds.

Study	Ethics	Control	Control 2	PHB Type	PHB Origin	Scaffold Fabric. Method	Nerve Gap Size	Nerve Studied	Period Evaluated	Surgical Procedure	Euthanasia Method	Species	Sex/Weight	Group Size & Distribution	Group Size Just.	Statistics	Complete Results	Precision Measures	Limitations	Conclusion > Objectives
Borkenhagen et al., 1998 [13]				●	●	●	●	●	●	●		●		●		●	●	●	●
Ljungberg et al., 1999 [14]	●	●			●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●		●	●	●	●	●
Hazari et al., 1999a [15]	●	●		●	●	●	●	●	●	●		●	●	●		●	●	●
Hazari et al., 1999b [16]	●	●		●	●	●	●	●	●	●		●					●	●		●
Young et al., 2002 [17]	●	●		●		●	●	●	●	●		●		●		●	●	●		●
Mohanna et al., 2003 [18]	●			●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●		●	●	●	●	●
Hart et al., 2003 [19]	●	●		●	●	●	●	●	●	●		●		●		●	●	●		●
Birchall et al., 2004 [20]	●	●			●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●			●		●
Mohanna et al., 2005 [21]	●			●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●				●	●		●
Kalbermatten et al., 2008a [22]	●	●		●	●	●	●	●	●	●		●		●		●	●	●
Kalbermatten et al., 2008b [23]	●			●	●	●	●	●	●	●		●		●		●	●	●		●
Kalbermatten et al., 2008c [24]	●			●	●	●	●	●	●	●		●		●		●	●	●
Bian et al., 2009 [25]		●	●	●		●	●	●	●	●		●	●	●		●	●	●		●
Durgam et al., 2010 [27]		●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●			●	●	●			●	●
Schaakxs et al., 2017 [33]	●	●		●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●		●		●	●	●		●
Ozer et al., 2018 [34]	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●		●	●	●	●		●	●	●		●

● = Ethics: Declares to follow ethical guidelines for animal experimentation or approval by a Scientific Ethical Committee; Control: Experimental protocol has a control group; Control 2: Experimental protocol has 2 control groups; PHB type: declares the type of the PHB used; PHB origin: declares the origin of the PHB used; scaffold fabric method: explains the fabrication method for the scaffold; nerve gap size: declares the size of the nervous GAP; nerve studied: declares nerve studied; periods evaluated: declares the time in which the evaluations were carried out; surgical procedure: explains the surgical procedures performed; euthanasia method: explains the euthanasia method used; species: declares the animal species studied; sex/weight: declares sex and weight of animals at the beginning of the experimental protocol; group size and distribution: declares the size of the experimental group and explains the distribution of animals in the groups; group size just.: justifies the sample size; statistics: declares the statistical methods used for data analysis; complete results: presents complete results of the proposed the methodology; precision measures: reveals the precision values of the quantitative data (e.g., SD; SEM or IQ distance); limitations: states the limitations of the study; conclusion > objectives: conclusion consistent with the proposed objectives.