*2.1. Included Studies*

A Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram flowchart summarizing the literature search is shown in Figure 1 [6]. The initial search identified 1940 and 5722 potential studies from PubMed and EMBASE, respectively. After the removal of duplicates the total number of articles was 7662. After screening, a total of 5738 articles were excluded based on their title and/or abstract, while another 185 articles were removed after a full-text assessment. A total of 20 articles met the qualitative inclusion criteria, while 17 trials, including 3038 participants, met the criteria for systematic review and network meta-analysis.

**Figure 1.** Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram of the study selection process for network meta-analysis. The figure was generated using the PRISMA 2009 Flow Diagram.
