Efficacy of reinforcing sutures in preventing anastomotic leakage after surgery for rectal cancer: A systematic review and metaanalysis

Table 2 The Newcastle-Ottawa scale for assessing the quality of included studies

Ref.	Is the case definition adequate	Representativeness of the cases	Selection of Controls	Definition of Controls	Comparability of cases and controls on the basis of the design or analysis	Ascertainment of exposure	Same method of ascertainment for cases and controls	Non-response rate	Quality assessment score
Baek SJ et al[21]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1		7
Maeda K et al[22]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	8
Lin et al[24]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	8
Ban et al[25]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	8
Zhang et al[26]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	8
Hashida et al[27]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1		7
Yi et al[28]	1	1	1	1	2	1	1	1	9
Jin et al[29]	1	1	1	1	1	1		1	7
Zhang et al[32]	1	1	1	1	2	1	1	1	9
Chen et al[33]	1	1	1	1	1	1		1	7
Luo et al[34]	1	1	1	1	2	1	1	1	9
Wu et al[35]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1		7
Liu et al[36]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1		7
Liu et al[37]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	8
Liu D et al[38]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1		7
Zheng et al[40]	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	8

High-quality: Score 7-9; Moderate quality: Score 4-6; Poor quality: Score 0-3.