Do women with pure stress urinary incontinence need urodynamics?
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the value of performing urodynamic investigations in the assessment of women with a history of pure stress urinary incontinence (SUI).


METHODS
Consecutive women with lower urinary tract symptoms were studied retrospectively. Urinary symptoms were determined from the frequency-volume chart and symptom section of the King's Health Questionnaire. Only women with pure SUI symptoms were included.


RESULTS
A total of 3428 women aged 24-81 years were studied. Only 308 women (8.9%) could be classified as having pure SUI from the questionnaire. Of these, 241 of women (78.2%) had urodynamic stress incontinence, 23 women (7.5%) had detrusor overactivity, 9 women (2.9%) had mixed urodynamic diagnosis, and 35 women (11.4%) had inconclusive urodynamics. Postvoid residual volumes greater than 100 mL were noted in 24 (7.8%) women.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results show that urodynamic investigations provide useful information in the assessment of women with a history of pure SUI, because as many as 20% of them might not need surgery as the first line of treatment.
Digesu
G Alessandro
GA
Department of Urogynaecology, St Mary's Hospital, Imperial College, London, UK. digesualex@hotmail.com
Hendricken
Caroline
C
Fernando
Ruwan
R
Khullar
Vik
V
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D014550:Urinary Incontinence, Stress / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery; D014563:Urodynamics; D055815:Young Adult