Figure 2 is a flow chart that summarizes our literature search and selection of articles for the report. We identified 6,373 citations through our prespecified database searches of PubMed, the Cochrane Library, Embase, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, ClinicalTrials.gov, the World Health Organization’s International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, and the New York Academy of Medicine’s Grey Literature Index; we also found 429 citations through other sources, including the prior report, team member or reviewer recommendations, handsearching the reference lists of relevant systematic reviews, companion article additions, and Supplemental Evidence and Data materials. Together, these yielded 5,288 unique articles to screen after removing duplicates. We excluded 3,659 of these articles based on a review of their titles and abstracts, which left us with 1,629 full-text articles to review. Of these, we excluded 1,505 articles for various reasons, including: publication type; inclusion of patients aged <18; RA disease duration >2 years or wrong diagnosis; wrong drugs; comparators; outcomes; study design; non-English language manuscripts; wrong definition of early RA (i.e., disease duration up to 2 years); irretrievable articles; duplicate publications; and placebo-controlled study articles not usable for network meta-analysis. In total, 49 studies with 124 published articles met our eligibility criteria and were included in our qualitative synthesis. Fifteen of these studies were used in our main or sensitivity network meta-analyses.

Figure 2Summary of literature search flow and yield for early rheumatoid arthritis

IPA = International Pharmaceutical Abstracts; NWMA = network meta-analysis; NY = New York; RA = rheumatoid arthritis; SEADs = supplemental evidence and data; WHO ICTRP = World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform; yr = year.

From: Results

Cover of Drug Therapy for Early Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Systematic Review Update
Drug Therapy for Early Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Systematic Review Update [Internet].
Comparative Effectiveness Review, No. 211.
Donahue KE, Gartlehner G, Schulman ER, et al.
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