[Urinary drainage and urinary diversion. Patient selection and counseling]

In the past 18 years, traditional methods of urinary drainage and diversion via conduits and ureterosigmoidostomy have been increasingly replaced by new techniques of orthotopic bladder substitution and continent urinary diversion. With growing knowledge of the physical and physiological relationships, the more than 40 techniques of continent urinary diversion using almost all segments of the gastrointestinal tract have ceased being spectacular and experimental. The various methods are well established, preparatory care and follow-up are standardized, and the technical and methodological aspects are sufficiently elucidated so that the underlying precept, i.e., improvement of these patients' quality of life, has priority.