Standardization of Patient Outcomes Reporting in Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: There exist no global standards for defining patient outcomes in renal stone surgery. The objective of this study was to evaluate the quality of reporting of outcomes in studies investigating percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) and to propose standardized consensus definitions for common outcomes. METHODS: We performed a literature search in PubMed for randomized controlled studies that investigated PCNL between 2002 and 2012. All outcomes reported were analyzed for each study. Each article was examined to identify the definition of each reported patient outcome. Various aspects of patient outcomes were presented to a panel of 85 experts in a Delphi process consisting of three rounds. The experts were asked to select options that they believed would best describe each outcome. Finally, we composed recommendations for definition of the most common outcomes reported in PCNL studies. RESULTS: Eighty-three RCTs were included in the review of patient outcomes. Stone-free rate (55, 63.9%), length of stay (47, 56.6%), complication rate (44, 53.0%), and changes in hemoglobin (40, 48.2%) were the most frequently reported outcomes in randomized controlled trials of PCNL. Only 24/53 (45.3%) studies had a formal definition of stone-free status. Only 31/40 (77.5%) studies, which reported change in hemoglobin, had a unit of measurement; however, 22/40 (55.0%) did not report the timing of postoperative hemoglobin measurement. A set of recommendations for defining patient outcomes in PCNL is presented for the 15 most commonly reported outcomes in PCNL. CONCLUSIONS: Wide variations and underspecification exist in the definition and reporting of outcomes in PCNL. We propose recommendations for the definition of outcomes based on a review of the literature and expert opinion. Standardization of outcome definition and reporting will improve the quality of urologic research.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.750 | 0.809 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.009 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.030 | 0.024 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.013 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.014 | 0.013 |
| Open science | 0.010 | 0.013 |
| Research integrity | 0.005 | 0.008 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; the direct Gemma label and the distilled Codex classifier agree on what is shown here.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".