Study	Reason for exclusion
Arvieux 2005	No comparison group
Bais 1995	Extreme selection bias in treatment allocation and no statistical adjustment was carried out, “The primary criteria for surgical treatment were an estimated life expectancy of more than 8 weeks and at least a moderate general clinical condition … Twelve of 31 patients were conservatively managed because of short life expectancy and/or extensive tumour”
Bryan 2006	Extreme selection bias in treatment allocation and no statistical adjustment was carried out, “Treatments were approximately equally divided between chemotherapy, surgery, and supportive management, depending on clinician preference”
Dinstl 1976	Peritoneal carcinoma details are reported, but not broken down by ovarian cancer or by sex
Gadducci 1998	Extreme selection bias in treatment allocation and no statistical adjustment was carried out, “The decision upon surgical or medical treatment of bowel obstruction was taken without any fixed protocol and the choice of therapy was individualised … The selection of patients for surgery presumed that they will have a sufficiently long life expectancy”
Glass 1973	Only 15 women with ovarian cancer were included and there was no breakdown by treatments
Krouse 2002	Narrative discussing three case reports
Krouse 2008	Commentary on “Surgical Approaches to Malignant Bowel Obstruction,” by Helyer and Easson
Larson 1989	Comparison of surgical procedures was possible, but only 19 operations for bowel obstruction were performed
Laval 2007	Review paper of different treatments for patients with ovarian cancer and bowel obstruction
Li 2004	Relevant details of criteria for assignment of patients to treatments was not provided and only baseline characteristics of women receiving surgery were given. No statistical adjustment was used in any of the analyses so the study was open to selection bias
Lund 1989	“There was no significant difference in the distribution of primary prognostic factors as stage, size of residual tumour, or diffuse intestinal carcinomatosis at primary laparotomy. There was an equal distribution of clinical responders, patients with palpable abdominal tumour and ascites at intestinal obstruction, just as the median age was the same in the two groups”. However at the time of bowel obstruction, “The treatment … was either conservative, … or conservative treatment followed by surgical treatment if the patient was found to be operable”. Extreme selection bias present in this study and no statistical adjustment was made
Medina-Franco 2008	Only 11/130 women had ovarian cancer that induced bowel obstruction
Miller 2000	Only 9 patients had ovarian carcinoma and 1 had carcinoma of the fallopian tube
Onsrud 2001	Treatment was reported by cancer type, but no statistical adjustment was carried out so strong likelihood of selection bias
Paganelli 1990	Only 20 patients were included in the study
Ross 2006	Case report
Sartori 2009	Extreme selection bias in treatment allocation and no statistical adjustment was carried out, “The type of treatment of bowel obstruction, surgical or medical, was not decided based on a fixed protocol, but the choice of therapy was individualized”
Scheidbach 1999	Of the 24 patients included in this study 12 were men and 12 were women. In all these patients, only three had received a Gynaecological operation for primary tumour
Xinopoulos 2004	This RCT which randomised 30 patients, included only 14 women, of whom only six had ovarian cancer. The paper did not report a breakdown of women with ovarian cancer by treatment