Efficacy and safety of abacavir-containing combination antiretroviral therapy as first-line treatment of HIV infected children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Table 4 Quality assessment of cohort studies

Quality evaluation	Brennan 2014 [29]	Technau 2014 yy
Representativeness of the exposed cohort	*	*
Selection of the non-exposed cohort	*	*
Ascertainment of exposure	-	-
Demonstration that outcome of interest was not present at the start of the study	*	*
Comparability	*	*
Assessment of outcomes	-	*
Was follow up long enough for outcomes to occur	*	-
Adequacy of follow up of cohorts	*	-
Total score	6	5

Table 4 shows the quality assessment of each of the included cohort studies using the Newcastle - Ottawa Scale. Each item can receive 1 star (*), except for Comparability that can receive 2 stars. The total number of stars represents the score, which demonstrates the quality of the study

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