4. Effects of keloid properties on treatment efficacy 98 METHODS A comprehensive electronic literature search was performed by a Biomedical Informatics Specialist in Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trial, Embase, Google Scholar, Medline ALL and Web of Science Core Collection (Supplementary files). This systematic review was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42023451685) and the PRISMA 2020 checklist was followed (Supplementary files). Duplicates were removed, and titles and abstracts were screened for eligibility independently by two reviewers (V.B.; P.B). Hereafter, full-text articles were assessed for eligibility. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were included if the full-text was published in English from inception to August 2023, and if they assessed the efficacy of any keloid treatment in patients of all ages, with at least one keloid property analyzed. Studies were excluded if they did not provide separate analyses for keloids when hypertrophic scars were also included. Standardized data extraction, and methodological quality assessment of the included studies were performed independently by V.B and P.B. Discrepancies between reviewers were discussed and resolved by consensus and if necessary, discussed with A.W. The collected data included the (1) analyzed keloid properties, (2) treatment efficacy, (3) primary outcome measure, (4) total no. of keloids and patients, and (5) keloid therapies used. Methodological quality was assessed using the Cochrane risk-of-bias 2.0 tool (ROB 2.0), and figures of the methodological quality assessment were created with Robvis.2
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