Do women with pure stress urinary incontinence need urodynamics?

OBJECTIVES

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.