Table 2.

MINORS checklist for included studies

Study	Garufi	Sougklakos	ASSENAT	Saridaki	Folprecht	Fornaro	Bendell	Pietrantonio	Cremolini	Modest	Ogata	Samalin	Deng	Tsuji
Methodological items for non-randomized studies
A clearly stated aim	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Inclusion of consecutive patients	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Prospective collection of data	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	1	1	2	2
Endpoints appropriate to the aim of study	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Unbiased assessment of the study endpoint	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Follow-up period appropriate to the aim of the study	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Loss to follow up less than 5%	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Prospective calculation of the study size	2	0	2	2	0	2	2	0	2	0	0	0	2	0
Additional criteria for comparative studies
An adequate control group	-	-	-	-	2	-	-	-	2	-	2	-	-	2
Contemporary groups	-	-	-	-	2	-	-	-	2	-	2	-	-	2
Baseline equivalence of groups	-	-	-	-	2	-	-	-	2	-	2	-	-	2
Adequate statistical analyses	-	-	-	-	2	-	-	-	2	-	2	-	-	2
Total	16	14	16	16	22	16	16	14	24	14	21	13	16	22