SAGES Magazine

THE SOUTH AFRICAN GASTROENTEROLOGY REVIEW 2022 | VOLUME 20 | ISSUE 1 | 23 3.2.Excluded Studies Twenty studies 19-38 were excluded during the full-text screening phase. The reasons for exclusion are summarized in Table 3. One study 35 was excluded by the main author on account of having been published later in a different journal 14 , and which was considered for inclusion as shown in Table 3. RESEARCH Study ID Study design Country Population Population Control group Outcome Odes & Madar, 1991 [18] RCT Israel Patients aged 18 and older with constipation for over two years or diagnosed with IBS-C by unspecified criteria. Patients aged 18 and older with constipation for over two years or diagnosed with IBS-C by unspecified criteria. Matching placebo Improvement of symptoms (incl. stool rate, and consistency, abdominal pain, distension). Response to treatment was defined by patients as to whether they regarded themselves as improved following treatment. Sallon et al., 2002 [19] RCT Israel Patients aged 20-81. Diagnosed with IBS-C by Rome I and international consensus criteria for constipation. Patients aged 20-81. Diagnosed with IBS-C by Rome I and international consensus criteria for constipation. Matching placebo Improvement of symptoms. The patients compared their overall response to the trial therapy with previous treatments tried for IBS-C using ordinal scale: 0 (worse), 1 (same), 2 (better) and 3 (much better). Patients were also asked at each monthly visit to state their overall impression of any positive effect of treatment. Response to treatment was not defined by authors. Størsrud et al., 2015 [14] RCT Sweden Patients aged 18-65. Diagnosed with IBS by Rome III Patients aged 18-65. Diagnosed with IBS by Rome III Matching placebo Improvement of symptoms through the use of the IBS symptom severity scoring system (IBS-SSS), with range 0-500, with a ≥50 point improvement considered as response to treatment. Table 3: Table of excluded studies Study ID Reason for exclusion Bhaludra et al., 2013 [17] Review study – no primary data provided Chang and Lu, 2009 [18] Review study – no primary data provided Cirillo and Capasso 2015 [19] Review study – no primary data provided Franz, 1992 [20] Full text article could not be accessed Flück 1970 [21] Full text article could not be accessed Gordon et al., 2016 [22] Review study – no primary data provided Hu, 2009 [23] Constipation was induced by opioids Hutcheon, 2014 [24] Review study – no primary data provided Khedmat et al., 2013 [25] Before-and-after study (not placebo-controlled) Koch, 1993 [26] Before-and-after study (not placebo-controlled) Jekat, 1990 [27] Review study – no primary data provided Koch, 1995 [28] Full text article could not be accessed Kwon and Sun, 2016 [29] Constipation was induced by opioids Liu et al., 2006 [30] Review study – no primary data provided Ma, 2015 [31] Constipation was induced by opioids Melzig, 2008 [32] Full text article could not be accessed Størsrud et al., 2009 [33] Previously published duplicate of a selected study [14] Wintola, 2017 [34] Ethno-botanical study with no primary experimental data Wiessner, 2008 [35] Full text article could not be accessed Zhao et al., 2004 [36] Constipation was induced by opioids