Table 1 Search strategy to identify studies, by database

MEDLINE (Search terms via Pubmed)*

(“Hepatitis C” OR HCV) AND (“alcohol dependence” OR alcoholism OR “alcohol-dependent”) AND (pharmacological treatment OR drug therapy OR disulfiram OR naltrexone OR acamprosate OR baclofen OR ondansetron OR topiramate)

138

3

Embase (MeSH terms via Ovid)

#1: Hepatitis C OR Hepatitis C virus

92110

3 (duplicates)

#2: Alcoholism [subheading: drug therapy]

5267

#3: Disulfiram

7571

#4: Naltrexone

11449

#5: Acamprosate

1772

#6: Baclofen

14259

#7: Topiramate

14850

#8: Ondansetron

12818

#9: #2 OR #3 OR #4 OR #5 OR #6 OR #7 OR #8

60923

#10: #1 AND #9

237

#11: Limit #10 to human studies and year 1993 to December 2013 (final result)

225

PsycINFO (MeSH terms via Ovid)

#1: Hepatitis

1821

2 (duplicates)

#2: Alcoholism

24628

#3: #1 AND #2

62

#4: Limit #3 to human studies and year 1993 to December 2013

54

Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (MeSH terms via Ovid)

#1: Alcoholism

2130

0

#2: Hepatitis C

707

#3: #1 AND #2

4

#4: Limit #3 to year 1993 to December 2013

4

Clinicaltrials.gov (unpublished)

“Hepatitis C” AND “alcohol”

149

1 (underway; no results yet)