Table A4.Studies included in the analyzed reviews and counted in the Venn diagrams (Figures 2-5).

included publications
first (second – if two) author(s), year / USPSTF guide Nov 2012/ evidence update 2004 [30]1 / Fong et al, 2010[40]2 / MaHTAS 2009[16] / NHMRC 2002 [3] 3 / UKNSC 2011[1]4 / Italian guidelines 2005 [18]5
Cordover, 1997 / +
Ste-Justine 19946 / +
Yawn 1999 / + / + / + / +7 / +
Yawn 2000 / +
Koukourakis 1997 / + / +
Pruijs 1995 / +
Pruijs 1996 / + / + / +7
el-Sayad 1994 / + RCT
Danielson 2001 / +
Peterson 1995 / +
Nachemson 1995 / + / + / +
Rowe 1997 / + / + meta-analysis
Wilkinson (year not stated) / +7
Soucacos 1997 / + / + / +7
Amendt 1990 / +
Cassella 1991 / +
Connecticut Children’s Medical Centre 1999 / +
Dickson, Weinstein 1999 / +
Dobbs 1999 / +
Goldbloom 1994 / +
SRS document, viewed Dec 1999 / +
Thompson 1985 / +
Gurr 1977 / +
Newman 1977 / +
O’Brien 1977 / +
Rogala 1978 / +
Smyrnis 1979 / + / +
Dickson 1980 / + / +
Gore 1981 / + / +
Randall 1983 / +
Morais 1985 / + / +
Pin 1985 / + / +
Chan 1986 / +
Keret 1986 / +
Shannak 1986 / +
Fazey 1988 / +
Ohtsuka 1988 / + / +
Zhang 1988 / +
Juma 1989 / +
Al-Turaiki 1994 / +
Hansen 1994 / +
Goldberg 1995 / + / +
Ma 1995 / +
David 1996 / +
Stirling 1996 / +
Tanchev 1996 / +
Wang 1996 / +
Keskin 1997 / +
Minehisa 1999 / +
Motohashi 1999 / +
Redondo 1999 / +
Grivas 2002 / +
Nussinovitch 2002 / +
Velezis 2002 / + / +8 / +
Wong 2005 / + / +
Lonstein 1982 / +
Laulund 1982 / +
Daruwalla 1985 / +
Ohtsuka 1988 / +
Manninen 1988 / +
Montgomery 1990 / +
Montgomery 1993 / +
Grossmann 1995 / +
Huang 1997 / + / +
Karachalios 1999 / +
Chamberlain 2000 / +
Bunge 2006 / + / +
Thilagaratnam 2007 / +
Bunge 2008 / + / +
Negrini S 2005 / +
Lonstein, Carlson 1984 / +
Lessnick 2005 / + systrev
Maruyama 2011 / + systrev
Ueno 2011 / +
Sato 2011 / +
Freidel 2002 / +
Watanabe K 2005 / +
Negrini S 2010 / + Cochrane rev
Weinstein SL 1986 / +
Weiss HR 2006 / +
Ylikoski 2005 / +
Hung 2005 / +
Ward 2010 / +
Richards, Vitale 2008 / + statement
Beausejour 2007 / +
Pinel-Giroux 2006 / +
He 2009 / +
Akoume 2010 / +
Fong 2010 / [this paper] / + meta-analysis
Lee 2010 / +
Luk 2010 / +
Suh 2011 / +
Leone 2010 / +
Grivas, SOSORT 2007 / + recommendations
Shindle 2006 / + narr rev?
Negrini 2003 / + syst rev
Negrini 2008 / + syst rev
Fusco 2011 / + syst rev
Zaina 2009 / + ? syst rev
Romano 2009 / + Cochrane rev, protocol
Dolan 2007 / + syst rev
Maruyama 2008 / + syst rev
Weiss, Goodall 2008 / + syst rev
Danielson 2007 / +
Danielson2010 / +
Rivard 2002 / +
Weiss 2008 / +
Cheung 2007 / +
Bunge 2010 / +
BrAIST study 2011 / +
Bunge, NESCIO 2008 / +
Rose 2007 / + guidelines/ narrative rev
Weiss2008 / + syst rev
Wilk 2006 / +
Ali Fazal2006 / +
Ugras 2010 / +
Lee 2010b / +
USPSTF Guide 1996 / +
Morrissy 1999 / +
Cimino 2000 / + (in Italian)
Pavesi 2000 / + (in Italian)
Winter, Lonstein 1997 / +
Dickson 1999 / +
Sibilla 2002 / + (in Italian)
Negrini 2004 / +
Aulisa 1984 / + (in Italian)
Pavesi 1995 / + (in Italian)
Cote 1998 / +
Bunnell 1993 / +
Grosso 2002 / + (in Italian)
D’Osualdo 2000 / +
Mehta 1992 / +
Iwahara 1998 / +

1USPSTF: 120 papers found (related to screening for and treatment of adolescents for IS); 16 addressing pre-defined Task Force’s “key questions” 2, 3 and 5 [30], including 1 RCT (no SRs reported); however, refer to 1 of 4 reports from the Ste-Justine cohort study (see 6); 2Fong et al: 36 cohort studies on scoliosis screening included, published between 1977 and 2005, from 17 countries, in English (n=27), Hebrew (n=2), simplified Chinese (n=2), Japanese (n=2), Danish (n=1), Spanish (n=1) and Bulgarian (n=1); 3NHMRC: 4 studies on screening programs analyzed (see 7), 2 studies on screening tests mentioned, but not referenced or included in the analysis; additional studies on prevalence, natural history, diagnosis, management (treatment) discussed; search terms “scoliosis” and “spinal curvatures”, and filters to retrieve systematic reviews, randomized controlled studies, literature reviews, “well designed studies” and “articles reporting the accuracy of screening tests”; however, we were not able to determine, which studies were actually included as relevant regarding screening for scoliosis; therefore, despite the fact that the authors included four studies on screening programs in a focused analysis in a table, and discussed remaining articles in the text, we included all referenced papers in the Venn diagram; supplementary document [48] analyzed – nothing added, nothing changed; 4UKNSC:appendices to the document [46-48] list 470 retrieved papers, but they are not cited in the text and it is not clear whether or how they were used in the review; therefore we included in the Venn diagrams 53 papers discussed and referenced to in the review; 5screening is discussed in the “Assessment” section of the document, also with the issues regarding clinical examination methods (tests, measurements and x-rays); as no clear dimension have been provided by the Authors, the issue of the test and measurement accuracy is a part of the evaluation of a screening program as a whole, and individual papers are referenced to more than ones in this section; therefore we included all references from this section as regarding screening (14-37 in the reference list); 6study reported in four papers; the USPSTF evidence update refers to 1 of 4 reports from the Ste-Justine study, while they seem to be describing all 4 reports; therefore, we counted the 4 studies as if they would have been included in the report; 7review’s key articles, with quality assessment; 8paper described only in appendix to the HTA report [16], not in the duplicate article [36], but not mentioned in the text or in the text or tables, nonetheless fulfilled the reported number of included studies (n=28), therefore we included this paper in the Venn diagram