We excluded studies: amongst animals or children, if qualitative in design, case reports, case series, reviews, anonymous reports, editorials or author commentaries, with no appropriate control arm or comparator group, where TB patients with DM were not separated from those with other co-morbidities, of TB outcomes rather than the association, that did not report adjusted estimates of the TB–DM association, and duplicate reports. We contacted authors of potentially eligible studies to provide the adjusted estimate for the association, if the adjusted estimate was not included in the publication. Studies whose authors did not respond were excluded. The flow diagram of study selection is shown in Fig 1. First author (RHA) screened all titles and abstracts, reviewed full-text articles, and assessed their eligibility for inclusion. Figure 1: Flow diagram of study selection. Published studies were retrieved from the MEDLINE-PubMed and EMBASE databases. TB: tuberculosis; DM: diabetes mellitus. Data extraction and quality assessment Three authors (RHA, JAC, and LJA) designed the literature search terms and strategy. All potentially relevant full-text articles retrieved and reviewed to confirm eligibility. If eligible, data were extracted. All authors (RHA, FP, JAC, and LJA) contributed in assessing the eligibility of the included studies. The first author (RHA) extracted the data, which were re-extracted independently by at least one co-author (FP, JAC, or LJA). Discrepancies in data extraction were resolved by consensus or consultation with a third co-author. In addition to extracting baseline characteristics of included studies, we assessed methodological aspects, such as sampling strategy, characteristics of the study population, and TB and DM ascertainment. If a study
We excluded studies: amongst animals or children, if qualitative in design, case reports, case series, reviews, anonymous reports, editorials or author commentaries, with no appropriate control arm or comparator group, where TB patients with DM were not separated from those with other co-morbidities, of TB outcomes rather than the association, that did not report adjusted estimates of the TB–DM association, and duplicate reports. We contacted authors of potentially eligible studies to provide the adjusted estimate for the association, if the adjusted estimate was not included in the publication. Studies whose authors did not respond were excluded. The flow diagram of study selection is shown in Fig 1. First author (RHA) screened all titles and abstracts, reviewed full-text articles, and assessed their eligibility for inclusion. Figure 1: Flow diagram of study selection. Published studies were retrieved from the MEDLINE-PubMed and EMBASE databases. TB: tuberculosis; DM: diabetes mellitus. Data extraction and quality assessment Three authors (RHA, JAC, and LJA) designed the literature search terms and strategy. All potentially relevant full-text articles retrieved and reviewed to confirm eligibility. If eligible, data were extracted. All authors (RHA, FP, JAC, and LJA) contributed in assessing the eligibility of the included studies. The first author (RHA) extracted the data, which were re-extracted independently by at least one co-author (FP, JAC, or LJA). Discrepancies in data extraction were resolved by consensus or consultation with a third co-author. In addition to extracting baseline characteristics of included studies, we assessed methodological aspects, such as sampling strategy, characteristics of the study population, and TB and DM ascertainment. If a study