NONINVASIVE MEASUREMENT OF BLADDER PRESSURE BY CONTROLLED INFLATION OF A PENILE CUFF

Purpose: A noninvasive test providing reliable objective quantification of bladder pressure during the voiding cycle would make an important contribution to the management of lower urinary tract symptoms. We developed a new noninvasive test to measure bladder pressure in males based on controlled inflation of a penile cuff during voiding. We compared the new technique with simultaneous invasive bladder pressure measurement.Materials and Methods: We evaluated 7 volunteers and 32 patients. A conventional pressure flow study was performed first. The bladder was refilled, a penile cuff was fitted and after voiding commenced the cuff was inflated in steps of 10 cm. water every 0.75 seconds until urine flow was interrupted. The cuff was rapidly deflated, allowing flow to resume, and the cycle was repeated until the end of voiding. The flow rate was graphed against cuff pressure for each interruption cycle to determine the pressure at which flow was interrupted. This pressure was compared with simultaneous invas...