Failure rate of atraumatic restorative treatment using highviscosity glass-ionomer cement compared to conventional amalgam restorative treatment in primary and permanent teeth

This protocol has been registered with the International Prospective Register for Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) on the 05 January 2012 under registration number CRD42012001887 (Available online from http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/full_doc.asp?ID=CRD42012001887). This protocol comprises an update of an existing systematic review report by the authors as part of the SYSTEM initiative: Mickenautsch S, Yengopal V, Banerjee A. Atraumatic restorative treatment versus amalgam restoration longevity: a systematic review. Clin Oral Investig 2010; 14: 233-40. The protocol of this original review was not registered. This update will differ from the original review by changing and adding the following: PICO question: while the original review focused on the comparative success rate, this update will focus on the comparative failure rate between ART and amalgam restorations; Systematic literature search: extended to the databases for open access journals (OpenJ-Gate); regional databases (LILACS, BBO, IndMed, SABINET, Scielo); grey literature sources (Scirus/Medicine, OpenSIGLE, GoogleScholar); hand-searching of additional journals that were identified as not been indexed in above databases; searching of reference lists of included articles; Search term development: a detailed search strategy will be added; the search cut-off date will be extended beyond the date of the original systematic review; Article inclusion criteria: while the original review focused on articles published in English, only, this update will have no restriction on the publication language type; Article exclusion criteria: while the original review used lack of randomisation/quasi-randomisation as criteria for exclusion, this update will include all clinical controlled trials for data extraction; Data extraction: The information extracted from trials will be more extensive in terms of general trial information, intervention integrity, methodological quality and bias risk; Data analysis and reporting: in addition to a computed relative point estimate (RR = Risk ratio), the results will also be converted into an absolute outcome measure (RD = Risk difference), as well as an illustrative comparative risk for both, test- and control intervention, and reported accordingly; a summary of findings table will be added; statistical heterogeneity will be investigated using regression analysis; sensitivity analysis will be added in order to establish whether all findings are robust to the type of data analysis used; The original quality assessment of studies, including its criteria, will be replaced by a more stricter assessment of selection-, detection-, performance-, attrition bias risk; the assessment of publication- and reporting bias risk in the accepted trials will be added; Research gaps within accepted trials in terms of imprecision, inconsistency, lack of right information and shortcomings in bias risk control will be identified using a designated worksheet and subsequently more detailed recommendations for further research will be added to the this systematic review update.