Dolph Houben

58 CHAPTER 3 Materials and Methods Literature search A review protocol was developed based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA)-statement. (www.prisma-statement.org ). A comprehensive search was performed in the bibliographic databases PubMed, Embase.com, and Wiley Cochrane Library from inception up to April 21, 2017, in collaboration with a medical librarian. The following terms were used (including synonyms and closely related words) as index terms or free-text words: “Capanna*”, “Vascularized allograft*”, “Vascularized autograft*”, “Lower extremity*”. The search was performed without date, language or publication status restriction. Selection of studies Two independent reviewers (RH and MR) screened all articles on title and abstract. After this first screening on in- and exclusion criteria, the remaining articles were screened on full-text eligibility. In case of disagreement between the two reviewers, a third reviewer (HW) was consulted (Fig. 1). Because the original article describing the Capanna technique [21] was not found in the databases we included the original article into our search.