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.