Table 3 The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) quality assessment of the eligible studies in the meta-analysis
First author | Year of publication | Selection | Comparability | Outcome | Total score | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Representativeness of the exposed cohort (0 - 1) | Selection of the non-exposed cohort (0 -1) | Ascertainment of exposure (0 -1) | Demonstration that outcome of interest was not present at start of study (0 -1) | Comparability of cohorts on the basis of the design or analysis (0 -2) | Assessment of outcome (0 -1) | Was follow-up long enough for outcomes to occur (0 -1) | Adequacy of follow up of cohorts (0 -1) | |||
CNN presence/absence in any nodal group | ||||||||||
Li [19] | 2013 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
Zhang [20] | 2017 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
Zhou [21] | 2018 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
Feng [22] | 2019 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
Ai [23] | 2019 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 |
Xu [24] | 2021 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
CNN presence/absence in retropharyngeal nodes | ||||||||||
Tang [25] | 2020 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
CNN grades | ||||||||||
Zhang [26] | 2021 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 |
CNN laterality | ||||||||||
Xie [27] | 2021 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 |