Literature search
The literature review yielded 1034 articles. From the review of the
titles and abstracts, 1008 articles were excluded for being irrelevant
to the topic, non-English language, non-original, case reports,
editorials or duplicated studies (Figure 1). Twenty-six full-text
articles were examined reporting elective neck dissection in the
therapeutic management of cN0 in squamous cell carcinoma of the temporal
bone. Of these, 17 were excluded as they did not meet the inclusion
criteria, or because there were no available data on clinically N0
patients, the data were secondary,
or because the authors were
contacted but were unable to provide the data requested (authors of the
studies were contacted where required for information about individual
patient data to ensure a subgroup meta-analysis could be performed for
specific tumour histology of squamous cell carcinoma). From the articles
included in the systematic review, it was determined that nine studies
fully satisfied the inclusion criteria.