Table 1.
General Characteristics of 117 Included Trials in the Study (n=117)
| No. (%) | |
|---|---|
| Extent of loss to follow‐up (overall) | |
| <1% | 34 (38) |
| 1% to ≤2.5% | 19 (21) |
| 2.5 to ≤5% | 14 (15) |
| 5% to ≤7.5% | 9 (10) |
| 7.5% to ≤10% | 3 (3) |
| >10% | 12 (13) |
| Cardiology subspecialty | |
| Electrophysiology | 22 (19) |
| Heart failure | 3 (3) |
| Interventional cardiology | 33 (28) |
| Open heart surgery | 4 (3) |
| General cardiologya | 51 (44) |
| Cardiovascular imaging | 4 (3) |
| Control | |
| Standard care | 18 (15) |
| Placebo | 31 (27) |
| Pharmacological | 28 (24) |
| Surgical/interventional | 36 (31) |
| Other | 4 (3) |
| Funding | |
| Private for profit | 58 (50) |
| Private not for profit | 21 (18) |
| Governmental | 24 (20) |
| Not reported | 13 (11) |
| Not funded | 1 (1) |
| Reporting of methods to deal with LTFU | |
| Reported in methods | 100 (86) |
| Reported in results | 1 (1) |
| No | 16 (14) |
| Among the trials that LTFU occurred (n=91)b | |
| Separately reported in 2 arms | 70 (77) |
| Compared the LTFU group baseline characteristics with not LTFU | 0 (0) |
| Implication of LTFU discussed | 6 (7) |
| Analytical method to handle LTFU | |
| No LTFU occurred | 26 (22) |
| Complete case analysisc | 10 (8) |
| Worst‐case scenario | 2 (2) |
| Multiple imputation | 2 (2) |
| Inverse probability weighting | 0 (0) |
| Censored at time of LTFU in time‐to‐event analysis | 75 (64) |
| Assumption that none of the LTFU participants have event | 2 (2) |
| CONSORT diagram | |
| Without the diagram | 32 (27) |
CONSORT indicates Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials; LTFU, loss to follow‐up.
a
General cardiology trials in this review referred to pharmacological trials and lifestyle‐changing trials.
b
Number shown refers to trials that did the following.
c
Complete case analysis is defined as an analysis that only include patients with complete outcome data. LTFU patients are excluded from the whole analysis.