Thus, many patients and their caretakers seek out treatments that will help provide improvement

in these aspects of their lives. Unfortunately, relatively few data are available on the effect of current treatments on patient QOL. Most clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of medications and other treatments related to OAB define success as efficacy based on improvements in primary and secondary clinical endpoints. Generally, these clinical endpoints include reduction in incontinence episodes, micturition frequency, urgency measures, and nocturia. The potential problem with this Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical is that clinically significant changes in these parameters compared with placebo may not result in meaningful change in QOL for the patient or the caretaker and may result in discontinuation of medication. Failure to achieve meaningful changes in quality may be related to the fact that a particular symptom is not adequately changed or an adverse event impacts negatively on QOL. A strong argument for this is the poor rate of medication persistence Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical seen in managed care

patients with OAB that are significantly lower than reported discontinuation rates from clinical trials.4–7 Persistence rates for OAB drugs range from 8% to 29% in studies with at least 1 year of follow-up.4,5,7–9 When comparing extended-release (ER) formulations with immediate-release (IR) formulations, no significant difference was seen in persistence rates after multivariate analysis.6 In a study evaluating patient reasoning Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical for OAB medication discontinuation, only one-third of patients cited a single reason for discontinuation, with most citing multiple reasons

with a mean of 2.3 reasons.10 The more common reasons included: 46.2%, “didn’t work as expected”; 21.1%, “side effects”; 17.2%, cost; and 11.2%, “another medication/medical condition required me to stop.” Patient adherence with prescribed therapy is affected by perceived benefit, pill burden, complexity of dosing Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical schedule, memory lapses, and adverse events.11 With patients seeking treatment for OAB due to poor QOL and perceived improvement in QOL from medical therapy being multifactorial, it is clear why many believe that efficacy/success of OAB medication probably should not be linked to improvements in 1 or 2 endpoints, but instead should be linked to patient expectation and QOL improvement. Sitaxentan Ideally, once patient-centered goals such as the ability to perform certain tasks are defined, outcomes should be correlated with relief of symptom(s), patient satisfaction, and goal P505-15 solubility dmso attainment expectations as a result of treatment. We need to establish more clear-cut evidence of how a myriad of factors affect treatment response. QOL Outcomes in OAB Treatment Despite improvements in objective measures, changes in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) are not necessarily always seen with OAB medical therapy.