Interobserver and intraobserver reliability of the proposed International Continence Society, Society of Gynecologic Surgeons, and American Urogynecologic Society pelvic organ prolapse classification system☆,☆☆,★
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MATERIAL AND METHODS
Examiners included two attending faculty members, three urogynecology fellows, and two third-year residents. Subjects were enrolled from the gynecology outpatient clinics and the gynecologic urodynamic laboratory at the Duke University Medical Center and the Medical University of South Carolina. All duplicate examinations for the interobserver reproducibility study were performed by two examiners at different levels (i.e., faculty-fellow, faculty-resident, or fellow-resident pairs). All
RESULTS
The 48 subjects in the interobserver study had a mean age of 61 years (± 14, range 23 to 81 years), parity of 3 (±2, range 0 to 10), and weight of 74 kg (±31, range 36 to 101 kg). Approximately half the subjects had stage II prolapse, and 25% had stage 0 or 1 or stage III or IV prolapse (Table I). The mean time to complete the examination for all examiners was 3.08 minutes. Experienced examiners averaged 2.05 minutes per examination while new examiners averaged 3.73 minutes. Correlations for
COMMENT
After an extensive review of the literature, Brubaker and Norton3 observed in 1993 that "current clinical nomenclature used to describe pelvic support defects in the English medical literature is not standardized. Such a lack of standardization limits the communication and advancement of knowledge regarding these common clinical problems." The system described in this study represents a joint international effort by three respected societies to provide such standardization.
Although several
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2021, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
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From the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University Medical Centera and the Medical University of South Carolina.b
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Reprint requests: Richard C. Bump, MD, Duke University Medical Center, Box 3609, Durham, NC 27710.
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