Assessment of risk of bias and quality of evidence
Data from included studies were reviewed for risk of bias assessment and
applicability using the QUADAS-2 tool. [25] All evaluations were
performed independently by two different reviewers. Disagreements were
resolved by a third reviewer and consensus of the task force core team
(CR, IS, GdT, AS). The four key domains covering patient selection,
index test, reference standard (OFC comparator), flow and timing were
evaluated.
The Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation
(GRADE) [26, 27] approach was used to assess heterogeneity and to
evaluate the certainty of the body of evidence. [28-30] The task
force reviewed studies about each intervention and created evidence
profiles. Authors were not involved in decisions about topics where they
had a potential conflict of interest. All taskforce members decided on
the conclusions by consensus.