Quality assessment of randomised controlled trials in oral and maxillofacial surgery

Randomised controlled trials are the best way to study the evaluation of treatments. We have evaluated the quantity and quality of clinical trials in three of the main journals in the specialty of oral and maxillofacial surgery between January 2010 and December 2016, using a scientometric analysis, and evaluation by the Jadad scale. In this period, 303 randomised controlled trials (5% of the total) were identified; the largest number of studies were from Asia (45%) followed by Europe (32%). The subgroup that concerned most studies was oral surgery. The mean score on the Jadad scale was 3.06 points, which means that 32% of the total studies had a low risk of bias. Studies that declared funding and adherence to Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) were given significantly higher scores (p<0.001) than studies that did not. We conclude that randomised controlled trials in oral maxillofacial surgery have evolved in both quality and quantity since previous surveys were published. The quality of trials was related to the presence of funding and adherence to CONSORT.