I'm carrying out a retrospective cohort clinical study,
Some patients have visited the hospital twice because of recurrence, with few months in between, but with different symptoms, complications, and cyst size in each time. Even the primary outcome is different in each visit.
What should I do?
Should I consider only the latest visit?
Or treat them like 2 different patients?
Greetings Sebawe,
I would consider conducting separate reporting for the secondary cyst, this way your main analysis will only include patients primary cysts and if there is sufficient data for patients with recurrence, you can carry out additional analysis (logistic regression or just chi square) to investigate factors contributing to this recurrence. If data on recurrence is limited, then I think narrative reporting for these cases will be enough. Also, adding a yes/no variable in your main analysis for recurrence is a must, regardless if you include recurrence as a separate patient (which is not recommended) or have them in separate analysis.
Nevertheless, clinical insight in this scenario is a must.
Hope this helps.
Good luck!
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