Treatment of nocturnal enuresis with an ultrasound bladder volume controlled alarm device

Current treatment regimens for nocturnal enuresis are suboptimal. Medications such as desmopressin are efficacious for preventing the enuretic event but they offer little potential for a permanent cure and have side effects. Although the moisture alarm has good potential for a permanent cure, the child is mostly wet during treatment. Furthermore, the moisture alarm requires that the child make the somewhat remote association between the alarm event and a full bladder after the bladder has emptied. In this exploratory study bladder volume alarming, a new approach to treating nocturnal enuresis, was investigated.

A total of 40 sequential children 6 to 16 years old with nonorganic nocturnal enuresis who had had at least 1 wetting episode weekly for greater than a year were divided into 2 groups. Each child wore a modified PCI 5000 miniature bladder volume measurement instrument during sleep. An alarm sounded when bladder volume reached 80% of the typical daytime voided volume in group 1 and at 80% of the typical enuretic volume in group 2. Group 2 patients also performed daytime bladder retention exercises in regard to instrument measured bladder volume versus a progressing target volume.

In groups 1 and 2 the mean dryness rate before study initiation versus during the study was 32.9 and 9.3 versus 88.7 and 82.1%, respectively. Nighttime bladder capacity increased 69% in group 1 and 78% in group 2, while the cure rate was 55% (mean treatment period 10.5 months) and 60% (mean treatment period 7.2 months), respectively.

Bladder volume tracking seems to approach the goals of ideal treatment for nocturnal enuresis in that it prevents the enuretic event, appears to facilitate a permanent cure and is noninvasive.