Symptom scores and clinical measures in benign prostatic hyperplasia

Table 5 Complete leave-one-out sensitivity analysis results for all 28 studies across all three meta-analyses¹

Meta-analysis	Ref.	New Fisher’s Z	New Pooled r	Δr	95%CI	Stability
Meta-analysis 1: IPSS-quality of life (Full model r = 0.713; 95%CI: 0.557-0.820)
	None (Full model)	0.893	0.713	-	0.557-0.820	Reference
	Roy et al[18], 2016	0.837	0.684	-0.029	-	Stable
	Taneja et al[7], 2017	0.850	0.691	-0.022	-	Stable
	Anyimba et al[3], 2023	0.789	0.658	-0.055	-	Stable
	Nketiah et al[6], 2024	0.975	0.751	+0.038	-	Stable
	Timilsina et al[23], 2024	0.780	0.653	-0.060	-	Stable
Meta-analysis 2: Prostate volume-IPSS (Full model r = 0.457; 95%CI: 0.257-0.619)
	None (Full model)	0.493	0.457	-	0.257-0.619	Reference
	Udeh et al[17], 2012	0.487	0.452	-0.005	-	Stable
	Hossain et al[25], 2020	0.437	0.411	-0.046	-	Stable
	Rananda et al[4], 2021	0.449	0.421	-0.036	-	Stable
	Awaisu et al[9], 2021	0.514	0.473	+0.016	-	Stable
	Yadav et al[26], 2021	0.424	0.401	-0.056	-	Stable
	Ng et al[2], 2015	0.449	0.421	-0.036	-	Stable
	Ngwa-Ebogo et al[24], 2023	0.447	0.419	-0.038	-	Stable
	Sadiq et al[27], 2024	0.446	0.419	-0.038	-	Stable
	Rehman et al[30], 2024	0.487	0.452	-0.005	-	Stable
	Maghfira et al[28], 2024	0.391	0.372	-0.085	-	Influential
	Almaasah et al[29], 2025	0.443	0.417	-0.040	-	Stable
	Shah et al[11], 2024	0.373	0.357	-0.100	-	Influential
Meta-analysis 3: IPSS-post-void residual (Full model r = 0.363; 95%CI: 0.150-0.543)
	None (Full model)	0.380	0.363	-	0.150-0.543	Reference
	Ko et al[13], 2010	0.398	0.381	+0.018	-	Stable
	Cakiroglu[31], 2013	0.375	0.359	-0.004	-	Stable
	Aisuodionoe-Shadrach et al[32], 2020	0.384	0.367	+0.004	-	Stable
	Hamza et al[10], 2021	0.390	0.373	+0.010	-	Stable
	Mbouché et al[1], 2022	0.413	0.393	+0.030	-	Stable
	Anyimba et al[3], 2023	0.369	0.354	-0.009	-	Stable
	Apata et al[5], 2023	0.405	0.386	+0.023	-	Stable
	Kohler and Kausik[16], 2023	0.404	0.386	+0.023	-	Stable
	Nketiah et al[6], 2024	0.409	0.390	+0.027	-	Stable
	Shah et al[11], 2024	0.356	0.342	-0.021	-	Stable
	Fazal et al[12], 2025	0.291	0.283	-0.080	0.105-0.444	Influential

¹Δr: Change in pooled r relative to the full model (reference row). New pooled r was calculated using the Restricted Maximum Likelihood random-effects model on the remaining k - 1 studies. 95% confidence intervals marked - were positive across all iterations; full values available in Supplementary Table 1. Stable:|Δr| < 0.05 and no change in direction or significance; Influential: |Δr| ≥ 0.05.

IPSS: International Prostate Symptom Score; CI: Confidence interval.