Is aging a real risk factor for urological pathologies in men and women?

With the progressive aging of the population in industrialized countries, urological pathologies are also increasing and creating a socio-sanitary problem for the community. To investigate this problem we retrospectively analyzed a heterogeneous sample of 283 patients, 134 males and 149 females who attended our urodynamics laboratory.

The female patients were subdivided into 6 categories and the male patients into 7 categories according to their urodynamic diagnoses. Their age distributions were compared with those of the population of the region of Lazio in Italy in order to calculate the "risk tendency".

The most frequent pathologies in males were bladder outlet obstruction (BOO) associated or not with detrusor overactivity (DO), and in females it was cystocele associated or not with DO or obstruction. There is a significant increase in these urological pathologies in older people. The relative risks for the females increase from age 20-29, stabilize at around 50 to 69 years and decline thereafter. The risk approximately doubles every ten years of age from 20 to 50. At ages 50-69 the risk is about 8 or 9 times higher than the risk at age 20-29 and double that of women aged over 70 years. The risk for the males also approximately double for every ten years of age. Men aged 60-69 have about 25 times the risk of these pathologies than men aged 20-29, and in the oldest men, those over 70 years, the risk is almost 40 times as high.