Outcomes of patients lost to followup after mid urethral synthetic slings--successes or failures?

Purpose: We classified patients lost to followup after mid urethral synthetic sling placement as examples of treatment success or failure based on the Patient Global Impression of Improvement, and compared the outcomes of those who followed up to the outcomes of those who did not.

Materials And Methods: We reviewed the charts of 217 patients who underwent mid urethral synthetic sling placement. Telephone interviews including the Patient Global Impression of Improvement and the Medical, Epidemiological, and Social Aspects of Aging questionnaires were conducted for patients lacking 3-month followup.

Results: Based on the Patient Global Impression of Improvement of the 48 patients who responded 13 (27.1%) were failures. The overall failure rate of patients with at least 3-month followup was 19% (23 of 124).

Conclusions: In our study success rates for patients lost to followup were similar to the rates for those who had routine followup. However, it is uncertain if these data can be applied to other study populations, especially in a randomized controlled trial.