Advice

Appendix: Search strategy and evidence selection

Appendix: Search strategy and evidence selection

Search strategy

The sources are:

1. NHS Evidence (including guidelines)

2. NICE

3. Broad internet search: Google, for example: anoheal OR diltiazem "anal fissures" filetype:pdf

Medline & Embase (via Ovid)

  1. Fissure in Ano/ (1837)

  2. ((anal or ano) adj3 (fissure? or ulcer$)).tw. (1645)

  3. or/1-2 (2463)

  4. Diltiazem/ (5857)

  5. (Acalix or Adizem or Altiazem or Anginyl or Angizem or Anoheal or Apo-Diltiaz or Britiazim or Bruzem or Calcicard or Cardil or Cardizem or Cardizen LA or Cartia XT or Citizem or Cormax or Corzem or CRD-401 or Deltazen or Dilacor or Diladel or Dilatam or Dilcontin or Dilpral or Dilren? or Dilt-cd or Dilt-xr or Dilta-Hexal or Diltia or Diltiazem or Diltiact or Dilticard or Diltelan or Diltime or Dilzem or Dilzen or Dyalec or Endrydil or Filazem or Herben or Herbesser or Incoril AP or Masdil or Novo-Diltazem or Nu-Diltiaz or Progor or Syn-Diltiazem or Tiamate or Tiazac or Tildiem or Tiazac or Taztia or Vasmulax or Vasocardol or Viazem or Zandil or Zemtrial).tw. (7904)

  6. (42399-41-7 or 144604-00-2 or 33286-22-5).rn. (5857)

  7. or/4-6 (8781)

  8. and/3,7 (57)

  9. exp review/ (1748413)

  10. (scisearch or psychinfo or psycinfo or medlars or embase or psychlit or psyclit or cinahl or pubmed or medline).ti,ab,sh. (68813)

  11. ((hand adj2 search$) or (manual$ adj2 search$)).ti,ab,sh. (6089)

  12. ((electronic or bibliographic or computeri?ed or online) adj4 database$).ti,ab. (13361)

  13. (pooling or pooled or mantel haenszel).ti,ab,sh. (45041)

  14. (peto or dersimonian or der simonian or fixed effect).ti,ab,sh. (2605)

  15. or/10-14 (118668)

  16. 9 and 15 (53361)

  17. Meta Analysis/ (36967)

  18. (meta-analys$ or meta analys$ or metaanalys$).ti,ab,sh. (64961)

  19. ((systematic$ or quantitativ$ or methodologic$) adj5 (review$ or overview$ or synthesis$)).ti,ab,sh. (51347)

  20. (integrative research review$ or research integration).ti,ab,sh. (83)

  21. or/17-20 (100591)

  22. 16 or 21 (128067)

  23. clinical trials, phase iv/ or clinical trials, phase iii/ or randomized controlled trials/ or multicenter studies/ (237120)

  24. (random$ or placebo$ or ((singl$ or double$ or triple$ or treble$) and (blind$ or mask$))).ti,ab,sh. (863488)

  25. 23 or 24 (958923)

  26. (animal$ not human$).sh. (3705442)

  27. 25 not 26 (855414)

  28. 27 and 22 (47787)

  29. 8 and 22 (12)

  30. 8 and 27 (22)

  31. (cost? or economic$).tw. (384144)

  32. 8 and 31 (2)

CRD HTA, DARE and EED database

  1. (diltiazem) OR (anoheal) 52

  2. (anal fissure*) 20

  3. MeSH DESCRIPTOR Fissure in Ano EXPLODE ALL TREES 13

  4. #2 OR #3 21

  5. #1 AND #4 1

Cochrane CENTRAL

#1 anal fissure*:ti,ab,kw

#2 MeSH descriptor: [Fissure in Ano] explode all trees

#3 #1 or #2

#4 anoheal or diltiazem:ti,ab,kw

#5 #3 and #4

Euroscan

Diltiazem

Grey literature and ongoing trials search

  1. FDA

  2. EMA

  3. MHRA

  4. Scottish Medicines Consortium

  5. All Wales Medicine Strategy Group

  6. Manufacturers' websites as applicable

  7. metaRegister of Controlled Trials (mRCT)

  8. ClinicalTrials.gov

Manufacturer's websites

S.L.A. Pharma

Evidence selection

Studies were included based on predetermined criteria for relevance to the question set at scoping. Systematic review level evidence and RCTs were prioritised over other types of evidence for this review.