2.2 Study selection
Inclusion criteria were defined using the ‘Patients, interventions, comparators, outcomes, study designs, timeframe’ (PICOST) framework, as follows: 1) Participants: ME Patients, age ≥18; 2) Interventions/Comparisons: Triamcinolone acetonide of different routes of administration, including injection triamcinolone acetonide (IVTA), orbital floor triamcinolone acetonide (OFTA), retrobulbar injections triamcinolone acetonide (RITA), suprachoroidal triamcinolone acetonide (SCTA), Sub-Tenon’s infusion of triamcinolone acetonide (STiTA) or placebo; All treatments should be given alone and not in combination with any other routes of administration mentioned for TA in interventions. 3) Outcomes: Intraocular pressure (IOP) change from baseline; 4) Study Design: The language of the published or unpublished randomized controlled trials (RCTs) was limited to English or Chinese. 5) Timeframe: The duration of treatment should be longer than twelve weeks.
The exclusion criteria were as follows: 1) Animal experiments; 2) Including participants with pregnant or lactating woman; 3) Studies published in a language other than English or Chinese; 4) Published as abstract only; 5) Published as duplicate data; 6)Data could not be extracted; 7) Studies under the risk of poor-quality (e.g. retracted, without random sequence generation or allocation concealment).