Table 4 Data collection elements

Study characteristics

Study title, author, date of publication, journal published, sponsorship, country of publication

Study population (animal model)

Animal type, age, gender, strain, and weight, presence of co-morbid illnesses

Type of acute lung injury model

Direct infection, indirect infection, ventilator-induced injury, chemical-induced injury, trauma, shock, pancreatitis, ischemia-reperfusion

Severity of experimentally induced acute lung injury

According to the lung injury score [16]

Intervention and comparison

Time and route given, description of preparation and suspension of MSCs and controls

Co-interventions

Resuscitation fluids, antibiotics, and mechanical ventilation

Preclinical endpoints

Death, features and measures of acute lung injury (Table 3) that include: histological evidence of pulmonary injury;alteration in alveolar capillary barrier;pulmonary and systemic inflammatory response; measurements of physiological dysfunction; and pathogen clearance (measured using the number of bacterial colony forming units in lung, liver, spleen, and blood), and adverse events

Risk of bias assessments

In accordance with the Cochrane risk of bias tool, allocation concealment, randomization, blinding (personnel, endpoint measurements), and endpoint measures (completeness of follow-up)

Quality of reporting of individual preclinical studies

In accordance with elements of the ARRIVE guidelines [42]

Other

Industry sponsorship, single centre versus multi-centre, and presence of a priori sample size calculation.