| NON-INVASIVE
BLADDER PRESSURE MONITORING
Dr S L McIntosh, Dr Robson et al. The Freeman Hospital, |
Outpatient assessment of patients with suspected prostatic obstruction often uses “invasive” pressure-flow studies. These involve catheterization of the bladder, because of the unpleasantness of this investigation (for the patient) these researchers have looked at a novel, non-invasive means of measuring bladder pressure during voiding. And they have tested its validity!
Essentially they have placed a small blood pressure cuff around the penis and used inflation of this to interrupt the flow of urine! The project results showed that the added pressure in the bladder from the abdomen and its contents remains constant; this finding suggested this type of approach could be used to assess the “intra-bladder” pressure in cases of prostatic obstruction. This is important as prostate surgery for benign disease will only really be beneficial if the prostate is actually causing obstruction to the flow of urine.
Research summary dated 05 October 2001
Project 1999/07