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Chapter 2

Methods

To compare the strategies investigated in basic research studies and in clinical trials, we selected reviews and interventional clinical trials that contain the keywords “biofilm” or “bacterial infections” on Pubmed.gov and ClinicalTrials.gov, respectively. Details on keywords and advanced search criteria are described below.

Table. Keywords and advanced search criteria used in this study. Date: February 7th, 2020.  

Platform   Clinicaltrials.gov   Pubmed.gov  
Search field   “Condition or disease” field   Title   
Keywords   Biofilm   Bacterial infections   Biofilm   Bacterial infections  
Advanced search criteria   “Has results” or  

“No results posted” *  

 “Has results”  
  • Reviews  
  • Published in the past five years  
  • Written in English  

 

    1. * Since we found a small number (six) of clinical studies on biofilms with posted results, we also included trials with no results posted to obtain a more representative sample.

 

Using these keywords, we sampled the literature without focusing on a particular infection type in an attempt to get a wide and general overview. Table below reports the inclusion and exclusion criteria applied to normalize the output from both platforms.

Table. Inclusion/exclusion criteria applied to filter reviews and clinical trials.

Criteria  
Inclusion   Exclusion  
  • Bacterial infections associated with biofilms  
  • Healthcare-associated infections  
  • Interventional trials or reviews focused on preventive/therapeutic strategies  
  • Fungal, viral and worm infections  
  • Environmental or industrial biofilms  
  • Observational trials, information programs and descriptive reviews focused on basic aspects of biofilm development, growth methods or diagnostic tools  

We restricted our analysis to bacterial biofilm studies related to medical issues. Studies concerning fungal biofilms or environmental biofilms were left out. Studies focused on diagnostic tools, descriptive studies, and observational studies were also excluded from the final assessment.