Voiding urgency and detrusor contractility in women with overactive bladders

Aims: To check whether the contractility of overactive bladders would be affected by voiding urgency. Methods: We urodynamically studied 100 women: 20 normal controls (group 1), 60 patients with idiopathic detrusor overactivity (DO), and 20 with neurogenic DO from intracerebral lesions. The idiopathic DO groups 2A (n = 20), 2B (n = 20), and 3 (n = 20) had moderate, severe, and no voiding urgency, respectively. The neurogenic DO group 4 had severe urgency. The delay time of urgent void at cystometry (2 minutes or more or, respectively, less than 2 minutes) defined moderate or severe urgency. Detrusor contractility was defined by the maximum bladder external voiding power (WFmax). Results: WFmax was higher in the idiopathic DO patients than in the controls, had the highest values in group 2B, and did not differ significantly between groups 1-4 and 2A-3. Conclusions: We inferred from our data that idiopathic DO suggests a facilitation of voiding contractions and that such facilitation might be centrally amplified by severe urgency. This amplifying effect would probably be impaired in cases of neurogenic DO from intracerebral lesions. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.