Non-neurogenic Female LUTS

2. METHODS

2.1. Introduction

For the 2025 Non-neurogenic Female Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms guidelines, databases searched included Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Libraries, covering a time frame between 20 February 2022, and 1^st of May 2024, with a focus on high-level evidence only (systematic reviews [SR] and meta-analyses). A total of 1,423 unique records were identified, retrieved, and screened for relevance. Detailed search strategies are available:
https://uroweb.org/guideline/non-neurogenic-female-luts/?type=appendices-publications.

Recommendations within the Guidelines are developed by the panel to prioritise clinically important care decisions. The strength of each recommendation is determined by the balance between desirable and undesirable consequences of alternative management strategies, the quality of the evidence (including certainty of estimates), and the nature and variability of patient values and preferences. This decision process, which can be reviewed in the strength rating forms which accompany each guideline statement, addresses a number of key elements:

1. the overall quality of the evidence which exists for the recommendation [12];
2. the magnitude of the effect (individual or combined effects);
3. the certainty of the results (precision, consistency, heterogeneity and other statistical or study related factors);
4. the balance between desirable and undesirable outcomes;
5. the impact and certainty of patient values and preferences on the intervention.

Strong recommendations typically indicate a high degree of evidence quality and/or a favourable balance of benefit to harm and patient preference. Weak recommendations typically indicate availability of lower quality evidence, and/or equivocal balance between benefit and harm, and uncertainty or variability of patient preference [13].

Additional methodology information and a list of associations endorsing the EAU Guidelines can be found in the online: https://uroweb.org/eau-guidelines/methodology-policies.

2.2. Review

The 2025 guidelines were extensively peer reviewed prior to publication.

2.3. Future goals

• A SR of Patients’ Values, Preferences, and Expectations for the Diagnosis and Treatment of FLUTS.