Figure 1.
Flow diagram of trial identification and selection.
Table 1.
Baseline characteristics of studies included in the meta-analysis*.
Figure 2.
Forest plot of overall incidence of severe (grade 3 or 4) mucositis.
Squares to the left of the vertical line indicate that low level laser therapy reduces mucositis. Horizontal lines through the squares represent 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The size of the squares reflects each study's relative weight, and the diamond represents the aggregate risk ratio and 95% CI.
Table 2.
Summary of outcomes of low level laser therapy as compared to placebo/no treatment.
Table 3.
Effect of low level laser therapy as compared to placebo/no therapy on overall incidence of severe (grade 3 or 4) mucositis stratified by patient, laser and risk of bias characteristics.
Figure 3.
Funnel plot “trim and fill” technique assessing publication bias for overall incidence of severe mucositis.
The x-axis represents the risk ratio for the effect of low level laser therapy and the y-axis represents the inverse of the variance of the effect. Estimated number of missing studies on right side = 4.