Cartilage Defect Treatments: With or without Cells? Mesenchymal Stem Cells or Chondrocytes? Traditional or Matrix-Assisted? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses

Table 6

Methodological quality of included observational studies based on 9-star Newcastle-Ottawa Scale.

(a)

CS	Selection				Comparability	Outcome
	Representativeness of the exposed cohort	Selection of the nonexposed cohort	Ascertainment of exposure	Outcome of interest was not present at start of study	Control for important factor or additional factor	Assessment of outcome	Follow-up long enough for outcome to occur^†	Adequacy of follow-up of cohort	Total score
Kon et al. [28]									8
Kon et al. (soccer players) [32]									7
Nejadnik et al. [38]									7
Lee et al. [39]									7
Yamasaki et al. [40]									6
Gobbi et al. [41]									7

(b)

CCS	Selection				Comparability	Exposure
	Adequate definition of cases	Representativeness of cases	Selection of controls	Definition of controls	Control for important factor or additional factor	Ascertainment of exposure	Same method of ascertainment for cases and controls	Nonresponse rate	Total score
Manfredini et al. [34]									5
Ferruzzi et al. [35]									6
Macmull et al. [36]									4
Panagopoulos et al. [37]									5

Follow-up > 4 years. CS: cohort study; CCS: case-control study.