IJCS | Volume 31, Nº3, May/ June 2018

293 Figure 1 - Flowchart of the articles selected for systematic review and meta-analysis. Studies identified using MeSH descriptors PubMed: N = 281 articles Web of Science: N = 358 articles Studies identified using Health Sciences Descriptors Scielo = 1 article Total N = 640 Total of duplicate articles that were excluded N = 149 Total of articles selected after exclusion of duplicate articles N = 491 Number of articles excluded from initial screening: N = 460 • 374 studies included other than acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients or did not evaluate the clinical utility of cystatin C in the prognostic assessment of ACS. • 23 articles were published in other languages than those used in eligibility criteria. • 18 review studies (17 narrative review and 1 systematic review). • 11 articles were not cohort observational studies. • 3 meta-analyses. • 25 congress abstracts. • 6 patents. Full articles assessed for eligibility N = 31 Number of articles excluded after analysis of full text: N = 14 • 12 studies included other patients than acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients or did not evaluate the clinical utility of cystatin C in the prognostic assessment of ACS. • 1 article was not cohort observational study • 1 article did not evaluate cystatin C baseline levels. Articles selected for systematic review: N = 17 Articles selected for meta-analysis: N = 2 Number of articles excluded in the meta-analysis: N = 15 • 12 articles did not compare the fourth and the first quartile of cystatin C in the multivariate analysis. • 3 articles did not evaluate similar outcomes. Martucheli et al. Cystatin C and acute coronary syndromes International Journal of Cardiovascular Sciences. 2018;31(3)290-307 Review Article