Adherence to the 1997 American Urological Association Guidelines for the Surgical Treatment of Stress Urinary Incontinence

ObjectivesTo review the published literature in the Journal of Urology (JU) and Urology (UR) particular to the surgical treatment of stress urinary incontinence (SUI), to assess whether the recommendations as set forth by the original American Urological Association (AUA) Female Stress Urinary Incontinence Clinical Guidelines Panel were substantially adhered to in the subsequent SUI surgical literature.MethodsAn online search of JU and UR was conducted to collect all articles published between January 1998 and September 2006 reporting on the surgical treatment of female SUI using any technique. Articles were reviewed and abstracted for the various data points specified by the original Guidelines Panel that were recommended as a minimum baseline data set as well as standards of efficacy for future trials.ResultsA total of 90 articles (JU = 57, UR = 33) meeting the above criteria were identified and included in this analysis. There were no articles meeting all criteria, but most complied with at least half of the recommendations.ConclusionsSince the publication of the 1997 AUA SUI guidelines, adherence to the recommendations of efficacy for future trials in the articles published in the major U.S. urological journals has been suboptimal. The implications of this for the next AUA SUI Guidelines Panel, whose recommendations are based on the intervening literature since the last Guidelines Panel report, are unclear.